A Park Connects Us

A Park Connects Us is a picture poetry book for all ages. The majority of the book is a beautifully illustrated poem about the many wonders of a park. Illustrator Ellen Rooney takes author Sarah Nelson’s few words and brings people of all ages, abilities, and colours to life in an endless park setting. Frogs hop, dragonflies do loops, and dogs are everywhere. The pages are very busy with life being lived to the fullest.

The final two pages are titled “Did you know that city parks belong to all of us?” The text on these two pages is much more densely formatted and contains factual information about the creation of the first parks and the important roles of parks around the world today.

The city bought a long, scraggly rectangle of land in Manhattan, and hired Frederick Law Olmsted to create a park. Olmsted and an architect named Calvert Vaux mapped a plan for what would become Central Park. Over several years, thousands of workers drained swamps, blasted rock, and hauled soil. They built hills, bridges, waterfalls, and walkways, and planted acres and acres of trees, bushes, and wildflowers. At last, the homely rectangle was transformed into a magnificent park, thriving with life.

For forty years, Olmsted designed parks across the United States and also at least three in Canada, including Mount Royal Park in Montreal. Additional information focuses on the continuation of Olmsted’s belief in the role of parks to connect us to nature and to each other.

These smaller neighborhood parks are often filled with green grass and fun things for children, like playgrounds, ball fields, and swimming pools. Toronto, Ontario, has more than 1,500 parks — at least one park for every part of the city.

There is so much value added to A Park Connects Us by the additional information that it makes this picture poetry book a must-have to add to the top of your picture book selections this year. Parks are for everyone, and so is this book.