A Perfect Day for Digging

by Cari Best, Christine Davenier (Illustrator)

Overview

In the spring when trees unfreeze and grass grows green and pansies say, “Please plant me!” Nell and her dog, Rusty, can’t wait to dig in dirt just right for digging. But Norman, their neighbor, says “Ewww!” to digging and dirt.

Until Nell and Rusty begin to dig up unexpected treasures: a pretty striped marble, the mini stegosaurus that Nell lost last summer, and most intriguing of all—part of a tiny china doll. Who played with it? Is there more? Norman wonders.

Now, even Norman can’t resist. He rolls up his sleeves, picks up the extra trowel, and starts to dig in his own careful way—in the process discovering all the simple joys of digging, dirt, and the fun of trying something new. Words and pictures brimming with humor and exuberance capture one of the true rites of spring: Hooray for dirty digging!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781662524196
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	01/28/2025
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)
Age Range:	5 - 7 Years

About the Author

Cari Best’s acclaimed picture books have delighted many young readers and include When We Go Walking, as well as Sally Jean the Bicycle Queen and Shrinking Violet, both selected School Library Journal Best Books of the Year. When she’s not writing, walking, or riding her bike, Cari Best can be found digging with her dog, Jennie, in her own back yard, where she never knows what treasures she’ll discover. Cari Best lives in Connecticut.

Christine Davenier has illustrated many popular picture books, including Cari Best’s popular Sally Jean the Bicycle Queen and the best-selling The Very Fairy Princess by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton. She lives in Paris and in Ligerolles, France, where she takes great joy in digging in her own garden–and in getting dirty.

Editorial Reviews

2014-02-19
The pleasures of getting down and dirty in the garden can be contagious. "Bye, bye, snow shovel," crows Nell, trotting out into the muddy yard with her eager dog, Rusty, and a wheelbarrow full of pansies. "Hello, trowel!" Neighbor Norman—bow tie, white shirt, new shoes, fussily combed hair—declines the offer of a trowel of his own, but he lingers to watch as Nell and Rusty enthusiastically make holes and hills and dirt angels. Once Nell discovers a worm, some lost toys and other earthy treasures, his resistance crumbles, and over the fence he comes to help in the joyful construction of a "dirt museum" from pansies, soil, rocks and found prizes. Davenier's splashy, transparent watercolors don't quite do justice to the muck's muckiness (or, sadly, the pansies, which, after posing in a bright row on the copyright page, for the most part just make a pale, indistinct blur in later illustrations) but capture the joy of getting back in (literal) touch with the planet. She also subtly leaves her figures' ages indeterminate, so that in different scenes, Nell could be seen as Norman's agemate, older or even an adult. An exuberant valentine to spring and to gardens in general. As Norman puts it: "Hooray for dirty digging!" (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews