Agnes’s Garden

Doody’s Agnes’s Garden is a fresh, fun take on the traditional tale of the unremarkable underdog who, in a time of great need, steps forth and becomes the hero (or, in this case, the heroine). In her tiny community, Agnes was “well known for her garden”, but “well known” does not equate with being “appreciated for” or “respected for”. Instead, her neighbours questioned, “Why all the veggies...?” And they wondered why she didn’t keep pigs or chickens for their meat. At the weekly fair, they bypassed her stall in which she was selling various vegetables, going instead to those offering seafood or different meats. Not discouraged at her neighbours’ shunning of her wares, Agnes simply “went home to make herself a nice vegetable stew – with cucumber sandwiches on the side.”

Agnes’s contented life suddenly changes when the two-masted pirate ship, The Carnivore, captained by “the infamous Captain Brisket”, drops anchor in the bay. As pirate-ladened rowboats depart the schooner, Agnes, fearing that her vegetable gardens may be trampled by these ruffians, takes unilateral action, Creating an improvised slingshot, she launches a barrage of her favourite vegetables – cucumbers - at the pirate ship, with the largest of the crop scoring a direct hit on The Carnivore, causing it to sink and the pirates to retreat. Seeing how useful vegetables could be, Agnes’s rescued neighbours embrace them, and now Agnes’s produce stall at the weekly fair has many like competitors.

Agnes’s Garden, set in the past and enhanced by Doody’s folk art-like illustrations, is a very lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek treatment of vegetarianism vs meatatarianism, and the book’s intended young audience will delight in its silliness.