If looking out your window reveals snow, ice, or pouring rain, then find your escape in A Bit of Earth. Reading about young teenagers learning to garden and cultivate beauty will be a bit like time traveling to the promising warmth of spring. If you and your students need a mood boost, bring A Bit of Earth into your classroom.
Title: A Bit of Earth
Author: Karuna Riazi
Genre: Realistic fiction
Age range: 10+ (best for 11-13 year olds)
Summary: Maria is prickly. Growing up in Pakistan, she was shuttled from family member to family member, first due to her parents’ extensive travel schedule and then due to their untimely deaths. Maria is accustomed to her various guardians becoming quickly tired of her—she’s a difficult child, they say. When an old family friend invites Maria to stay in Long Island, New York, she figures it will be more of the same: not worth her efforts to settle in because she will simply be moved along to someone else. What she finds instead is a household of people who are also struggling, some friends who don’t mind her prickliness, and a secret garden that makes her feel at home for the first time in a long time.
Recommend A Bit of Earth to students who enjoyed:
A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat (young teenage protagonist creates a found family and together they make their community a more welcoming space)
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloane (young teenage girl who is suddenly orphaned and works through her grief by creating something new and beautiful with her found family)
Hope in the Valley by Mitali Perkins (coming-of-age story for a young teenage girl living in the United States with family ties to the Indian/Pakistan region)
Why it’s an engaging addition to your classroom library:
As you may have deduced, A Bit of Earth is a retelling of The Secret Garden. It has been a minute since I read The Secret Garden but I think A Bit of Earth captures the timelessness of a story about a young girl who learns to love herself—prickles and all—by cultivating a beautiful garden with her found family.
It would be an interesting addition to a Book Club or novel study unit that analyzes retellings in order to compare and contrast the original to the new version. Students can ponder essential questions such as:
- How do themes remain timeless?
- What is it about a new setting or character profile that makes a “classic” relevant today?
- Why do readers continue to connect with certain storylines?
There are many students who would gravitate towards it as an independent reading option. If you share about it in a Book Talk, highlight these aspects:
- Pakistani Culture: Filled with Urdu words, descriptions of shalwar pants and saris, references to Islamic traditions, and rabab music, students with Pakistani heritage will see their culture reflected back to them.
- Found Family: Slowly, begrudgingly, Maria forms relationships with Lyndsay (her new guardian), Mimi and Rick (neighborhood friends), and Colin (Lyndsay’s step-son). She starts to believe that she belongs—and that she is lovable just the way she is.
- Gardening: Maria, Mimi, Rick, and Colin commit to bringing the hidden garden back to its former glory, leading them to learn about weeding, sowing, which plants like the shade, which like full sun. Your students who also count gardening as a hobby will enjoy their efforts.
Final Two Cents: This is a gentle book addressing difficult topics. Press it into the hands of those students needing TLC. Be in touch if you want to chat about teaching this book.
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