Mishan’s Garden

It’s very early to review Mishan’s Garden, a lovely picture book being published by Wisdom Publications in October, but I suppose a good buzz can only help with pre-orders. (It was previously published in the nineties with a different title.) Mishan is born into a cold and desolate village known as “The Village Above the White Clouds,” presumably in Asia, where the ground is too hostile to allow anything to grow. But Mishan is not deterred from her faith and optimism; and while the villagers mock her for what they believe to be a futile attempt, they respect her for her ability to defuse conflict between adults with a diplomacy that is at once sophisticated and child-like in its percipience.

I have to admit I’m not quite sure what happens to Mishan when she falls ill from despair at the sight of her barren garden. The suggestion is she disappears into a now-flourishing garden that provides the villagers with beauty, faith, and optimism.

Janet Brookeover’s paintings evoke Japanese watercolors, and have magical elements hidden in the images.  As I read Mishan’s Garden (text by James Vollbracht) over and over again, I kept trying to figure out how to describe the smoothness of the prose. I realized it was as if I were hearing a natural storyteller. This is no small issue for me as I am rather fickle about professional storytellers and don’t have much patience for forced dramatic enthusiasm. I believe that even without memorizing the story, as it is tempting to do, a parent or teacher will sound like they’ve had years of experience honing their rhythm and intonation. A child listening may think their reader is making up an original story.