Book Descriptions
for Gifts from Georgia's Garden by Lisa Robinson and Hadley Hooper
From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
A fresh approach to the life of Georgia O’Keeffe uses the garden Georgia planted and grew at her home in New Mexico as an artful touchpoint to explore ways her creativity and interests extended beyond painting, even as painting was a constant. Georgia planted, she tended, and yes, she painted. While her garden grew, she explored, she sewed, and she painted. When her garden blossomed, she cooked “simple soups—minestrone, potato, and leek; salads—watercress or beet and bean; dinner dishes—tomato soufflé and green chile enchiladas … And all the while, she painted.” End matter includes a photograph of Georgia working in her New Mexico garden along with brief biographical information, and discussion of sustainable gardening. Illustrations masterfully balance visual references to Georgia’s lush and moody art with distinctive and captivating scenes of her daily life and the desert landscape she inhabited.
CCBC Choices 2025. © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison, 2025. Used with permission.
From the Publisher
Come behind the scenes of Georgia O’Keeffe’s famous flower paintings to her sustainable homestead in New Mexico, where art was everything and everything was art.
Most of us have heard the name Georgia O’Keeffe— she’s one of the most famous women in art history. But did you know that for most of her life, she lived on her own land in New Mexico, grew her own food, bought locally, and even made her own clothing?
Georgia’s garden and her art fed and enriched one another, just as her bean plants enriched the soil and her home-grown feasts fed her friends. In spite of the era’s prejudice against female artists, Georgia lived and thrived in her verdant sanctuary well into old age.
Soothing and inspiring, Gifts from Georgia’s Garden illuminates the life and philosophy of a figure every child should know. Backmatter adds context to O’Keeffe’s story and invites families to try out her sustainable gardening techniques— and her pecan butterball cookies.
Gifts for Georgia’s Garden is the latest in Lisa Robinson’s collection of thoughtful, artfully-told picture book biographies on figures who broke the mold and made history because of it. Hadley Hooper, a painter in her own right and the illustrator of books about Matisse (The Iridescence of Birds) and Giacometti (Two Brothers, Four Hands), perfectly evokes Georgia O’Keeffe’s style with pictures that burst with color and life.
Named to the Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List
Most of us have heard the name Georgia O’Keeffe— she’s one of the most famous women in art history. But did you know that for most of her life, she lived on her own land in New Mexico, grew her own food, bought locally, and even made her own clothing?
Georgia’s garden and her art fed and enriched one another, just as her bean plants enriched the soil and her home-grown feasts fed her friends. In spite of the era’s prejudice against female artists, Georgia lived and thrived in her verdant sanctuary well into old age.
Soothing and inspiring, Gifts from Georgia’s Garden illuminates the life and philosophy of a figure every child should know. Backmatter adds context to O’Keeffe’s story and invites families to try out her sustainable gardening techniques— and her pecan butterball cookies.
Gifts for Georgia’s Garden is the latest in Lisa Robinson’s collection of thoughtful, artfully-told picture book biographies on figures who broke the mold and made history because of it. Hadley Hooper, a painter in her own right and the illustrator of books about Matisse (The Iridescence of Birds) and Giacometti (Two Brothers, Four Hands), perfectly evokes Georgia O’Keeffe’s style with pictures that burst with color and life.
Named to the Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.
