Under the Garden Gate

<blockquote><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Meet a nervous woodchuck a misbehaving squirrel a playful bunny a mouse who will not stay out of the house and several other backyard animals. </span><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Imagine sitting outside watching the birds and animals play on a lazy breezy sunny afternoon. That's what the author and illustrator Thistle did and came up with these delightful true tales of animals in the backyard. </span><em style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Under the Garden Gate</em><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)> is a collection of ten original stories with colored pencil illustrations inspired by the amusing antics of nineteen little creatures who visited Thistle's yard under the garden gate. </span></blockquote><blockquote><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>The cover illustration is of Samantha a feral cat who had kittens under Thistle's front porch. A real-life picture of Samantha in Thistle's house is on the back. Red in the poem Red's Tale got his name for the color marker used to distinguish him from the other mice in the yard.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>These delightful poems are perfect for children and anyone with a love for animals and nature. They make wonderful bedtime treats helping to spark the readers' imagination of visitors to their own backyard.</span></blockquote><blockquote>. . . The verses scan well mostly fitting into a standard scansion and using common rhymes easily understandable for emergent readers. Some vocabulary words (including louse magnolia and sauntered) may help readers stretch without ever losing sight of the subject of the poem. . . . -<em>Kirkus Reviews</em></blockquote><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </em></p><blockquote><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Find Thistle on the web at underthegardengate.com and Instagram - underthegardengate. Hear the poems read by Thistle and see real-life videos of the animals in her backyard.</span></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> </blockquote><p><br></p>