Hello everyone! You may remember when I posted an image of Through the Garden Gate, a picture book series by Sharon Rose, to my Instagram, Threads, Twitter and Bluesky earlier this month. In those posts, I announced that I was invited to review an advance reading copy of the book ahead of its release date by The Collective Book Studio. Well, with the book’s recent release, I am happy to share my review! Be sure to get it wherever books are sold! Below is the book’s synopsis:
“Luxuriant, floral-thick illustrations flesh out this exciting picture book about falling in love with the wonders of nature.” —Foreword Reviews
When Miles stumbles upon a neighbor’s mysterious gate, he steps into a world of wonder—where talking animals, fluttering fairies, and extraordinary plants await. Inspired by native ecology and brought to life through lush, timeless illustrations, this gentle adventure encourages children to look more closely at the natural world around them.
Why Readers Will Love This Book:
- Fantasy Meets Nature: A magical tale grounded in real ecological knowledge and native plants.
- Lush, Classic Illustrations: Every page bursts with detail, inspiring curiosity and imaginative play.
- Interactive Learning: Features educational backmatter and a garden-themed seek-and-find activity.
- Created by an Expert: Written by a garden designer with a passion for native ecology and childhood wonder.
A perfect gift for budding gardeners, fairy lovers, and young explorers, Through the Garden Gate opens the door to wonder waiting just outside.
I’m glad to have been given this opportunity after my previous review of The Next Big Pigs! But before we begin, I would like to give a heads up to some spoilers to the book. Let’s see the enchantment that awaits in these pages, shall we?
Background
In February 2026, I received a message from AJ Jolish of The Collective Book Studio, who told me that she came across this blog and thought I might enjoy Through the Garden Gate, a nature-themed picture book for children 4-8 by award-winning garden designer Sharon Rose. According to the book’s website, Rose is an award-winning garden designer and environmental artist based in San Francisco, California. She is the founder and owner of STUDIO SF Landscape Design, established in 2018, where she specializes in revitalizing natural landscapes and crafting distinctive garden spaces. With over two decades of experience and deep expertise in California native and Mediterranean plants, her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Sunset Magazine, and Luxe Interiors + Design. In her free time, she enjoys gardening and inspiring children to discover the magic and wonder of plants.
Also according to the book’s website, Erin Brown, the book’s illustrator, is an award winning Northern Irish illustrator who lives and works on the beautiful island of Jersey. After graduating university with a bachelor’s degree in fine art, a passion for stories and children’s books took hold. She combines her love for hand drawn lines and traditional techniques with the flexibility and freedom of adding colour digitally. She has worked with clients all over the world but particularly loves illustrating Irish stories and folklore. Her love of stories comes from her Grandad who lived by the sea and was always ready with a tale or two. When she’s not working in her tiny studio, she can be found baking something overly sweet, exploring the forests and cliff paths of Jersey or down at the seashore, watching the tide roll in.
Jolish explained to me that Through the Garden Gate is an introduction to the wonders of natural ecosystems. Heartfelt, captivating, and full of adventure, the story follows Miles as he wanders into a secret garden alive with talking animals, fluttering fairies, and vibrant flora, motivated all the while by curiosity and a desire to help others. Each page reveals magical details inspired by real-life plants, encouraging children to look more closely at the world outside their own doors. Jolish added that I write fantastic children’s book reviews, and she’d love to gift me a copy of Through the Garden Gate for my consideration. I thanked Jolish for reaching out and told her that Through the Garden Gate sounds beautiful, and I loved the nature-focused concept. I added that I’d be happy to receive a copy and consider it for review on my blog. When I received the copy, I posted a picture of it on my Instagram, Threads, Twitter and Bluesky ahead of its release, which you can also see below.
When I finally got around to reading the book, I was interested in including a short-written Q&A in my post. I decided to submit the following questions below, and I’m happy to report that Rose got back to me with the following answers!
Q: As an award-winning garden designer, what inspired you to tell a children’s story set in a magical garden?
A: My hope is that the book sparks curiosity, nurtures a love of nature, and inspires children to become the next generation of gardeners, scientists, and explorers. Plants may seem familiar, but there is still so much we don’t know about them. Scientists continue to make fascinating discoveries about how plants communicate, adapt, and interact with their environment. I wanted to create a magical story that encourages young readers to look more closely at the plants around them and imagine the mysteries they might hold. Setting the story in a magical garden allowed me to capture that sense of wonder and encourage young readers to see nature as full of mystery, possibility, and adventure.
Q: Through the Garden Gate blends fantasy elements like talking animals and fairies with real plants and ecosystems. How did you approach balancing imagination with nature education?
A: I worked with a brilliant editor, Rebecca Piatte of Collective Book Studio. She helped me refine the story and blend fantasy with the plant species that I wanted to incorporate in the story.
Q: Miles is driven by curiosity and a desire to help others throughout the story. What made those qualities important for your main character?
A: Curiosity is the spark behind many of humanity’s greatest discoveries—in science, art, and exploration. I wanted Miles to embody that spirit because curiosity encourages children to ask questions, seek new experiences, and look beyond what they already know. Equally important is his desire to help others. Throughout the story, Miles learns that knowledge and discovery are most meaningful when they are used to make a positive difference. By combining curiosity with kindness, he becomes a character who not only explores the world around him but also contributes to it in a meaningful way.
But how was the book, anyway? Does it inspire me to look more closely at the natural world around me?
The Review
I have to say, this book was really beautiful in its simplicity, with a degree of educational sophistication that makes it distinct from other picture books with nature-focused premises. The book begins with a boy named Miles lazily idling on his couch before his mother suggests he go visit Miss Mary, his next-door neighbor, to do some gardening. Naturally, he finds the idea boring, but caves in when his mother offers to make cherry pie if he brings some cherries home. Right away, especially from the third page, Erin Brown pulls no punches in making the illustrations as beautiful and detailed as possible, with the lighting giving off a really serene atmosphere. I’m no expert in plants, so I can’t tell if any of the plants at this point are based on real species, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The designs of the human characters are really cute and simple, from Miles to his mother to even Miss Mary (just look at her waving on page three!).
As soon as Miles comes over to Miss Mary’s house, he encounters “unusually colored chicks”, which was a pretty subtly clever early tease that the book was going to be fantastical. As Miles does tasks for Miss Mary, he notices a small door, which Miss Mary tells him she hasn’t been through in years. When he gets the chance to go through the door, he’s surprised to find that it was smaller than he expected. I really like what this detail implies, as it suggests that the last time Miss Mary had been through the door was when she was a child herself. It also makes a lot of sense for the fairies who presumably built it as a means of crossing between the natural and supernatural worlds, as there isn’t really any creature in their realm that’s big enough to need a door that’s any larger.
The first thing Miles notices in this realm are morning glory flowers, which bloom at sunrise and close at sunset. A close look at this illustration reveals a fairy hiding behind one of the flowers before Rose even states it in the text, which was a cooler way to introduce them. But the first fairy that Miles crosses paths with introduces herself as Gloria, who like all the other fairies have adorable designs. She reveals that time passes differently in their realm, with the day beginning only when someone passes through the door. Gloria states that it had been years since the last time it happened, strongly implying that Miss Mary was the last visitor. The implication that it’s been dark out in their realm for all those years is just a tiny bit grim for the story’s tone, though certain species like the moonflowers – which bloom at dusk and only last one night – suggests that darkness in this realm is as beautiful as it is in the day.
The detail Brown puts in her illustrations is especially apparent once Miles is in the fairy realm, as there are so many different fairies and animals hiding in the bushes from page to page that you can’t help but to identify and count, which is fun to do as you follow the narrative. At one point, the fairies are freaked out by an attack from crabgrass that takes on an anthropomorphic crab-like appearance, which was hilariously cute and thematically clever considering it is an invasive species. Miles, ever so curious, decides to investigate the talking birch trees on the outskirts that the fairies are too scared to go beyond. The trees don’t actually speak through mouths but through their roots, using science as a basis for the fantasy. That was much more original than a more typical fantasy trope such as trees with human faces, which Rose and Brown could’ve easily done instead.
The trees warn Miles of a threat deeper inside the forest, where he rescues a gopher named Toby from a bog before they find out that it was growing and they needed to stop it. I thought the threat to the environment was going to be more human-caused, and while those kinds of messages are important, they are also overdone, which is why I actually prefer that the stakes are more intimate here. The plan Miles comes up with to save the forest from the bog gives the fairies some nice character development, and it also ties back to an earlier plot point about drooping flowers that I think should’ve been emphasized a bit more to make that payoff feel a bit more earned, but it still works. The image of the fairy realm at dusk is gorgeous, and it’s easily the best spread in the book with its interspersed moonflowers and fireflies. And although I question Miles’ decision to sleep with his seeds in his hand, it at least does a good job at visually communicating his newfound love for gardening.
The end of the book has a section titled “About the Plants and Animals in this Book”, which features information about the plants (and gophers) in the story for those who know little about plants like me. For a book that’s meant to teach children about plants, it was incredibly helpful for me to put the story into perspective (and refer to while writing this review). Even though Rose does a good job at implementing much of the information in this section throughout the story, it makes the book feel more like a Magic School Bus book or even a Magic Tree House Fact Tracker rather than a purely fantasy story in that respect, so that was a great decision on her part.
Ultimately, Through the Garden Gate is an adorably beautiful story about seeing the beauty in things when it’s not so obvious. It shows how sometimes, you need to get out of your comfort zone and just explore the world to understand things that you might not care about or think about that often, and how interacting with your surroundings can help you realize things about yourself that you never knew were a part of you. I think that this book could really inspire kids to get into gardening or even botany, or at least learn new things about plants that might surprise them, or to even just make them want to go outside after reading. I wonder if Rose plans to revisit this book’s world – a sequel covering more plant species could be a really interesting next step, or even a prequel about Miss Mary’s time in the garden. If there’s anyone who could do it, it’s an author with a flower for a last name! 🌹
So, what did you think of my review? Will you be checking out Through the Garden Gate? I will be posting an edited version of my review of the book to my Goodreads shortly. Do you have a children’s book that is about to be released? You can send me an advance reading copy of your book (preferably electronic) for me to leave a review on or after the book’s release date in a future blog post. You can also send me the book’s cover for me to promote it on my Instagram, Threads, Twitter and Bluesky before its release date. Check the Contact page for more information. Be aware that I prefer to review middle grade, traditionally published books and books NOT created using artificial intelligence, and even then, I may not review every book I receive.
Until then, stay enlightened, educated and entertained, folks.
