The Weedy Garden: A Happy Habitat for Wild Friends

by Margaret Renkl, Billy Renkl (Illustrator)

Overview

This debut picture book from acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author Margaret Renkl—with collage illustrations by her brother, fine artist Billy Renkl—invites readers to observe and wonder about the various inhabitants in the vibrant ecosystem of a wildlife-friendly backyard garden. Features backmatter. 

If you were hungry squirrel in the weedy garden, where would you find an acorn? If you were a cottontail rabbit, where would you hide your bunnies? And if you were a child, sitting still and listening, what would the weedy garden say to you?

Margaret Renkl, a beloved regular contributor to The New York Times and two-time recipient of the Southern Book Prize, writes beautifully about our changing natural world. In her debut picture book, she asks questions that draw young readers deeper and deeper into the garden, inviting observation and conversation along the way. Each page turn introduces a new plant or animal friend, buzzing and dancing with quiet wonder. The fine artist Billy Renkl, Margaret Renkl’s brother and frequent collaborator, brings the weedy garden to life through his signature mixed-media collages. Includes backmatter with more information about the residents of the garden, eco-friendly gardening tips, and instructions on how to make your own collage art project at home or in school.

With evergreen themes of patience and respect for the natural world, The Weedy Garden will appeal to readers of Plant the Tiny Seed, On Meadowview Street, and Peter Brown’s The Curious Garden.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063432819
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/24/2026
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Margaret Renkl is the author of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, which won a 2024 Southern Book Prize and was a New York Times bestseller as well as Reese’s Book Club’s 100th pick. Her earlier titles are Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (2019), which won the Reed Environmental Writing Award in 2020; and Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South (2021), which won both the Southern Book Prize and the PEN/Diamonstein–Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay in 2022. Since 2017, Renkl has served as a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, where her essays appear on Mondays. The founding editor of Chapter 16, a daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee, and a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina, she lives in Nashville.

Billy Renkl is the illustrator of the picture book When You Breathe, by Diana Farid, and he contributed extensive artwork to two books by his sister, Margaret Renkl: Late Migrations and The Comfort of Crows. He teaches both drawing and illustration at Austin Peay State University. His work as a fine artist has been featured in many solo and group exhibitions, including solo shows in New York, Nashville, Birmingham, and New Orleans. He lives in Clarksville, Tennessee.