Peter In his own words...

The Nature of The Curious Garden

I’ll admit that my first few picture books supplied a super-sized serving of silliness. (After all, giggling is my favorite pastime.) But when I’m not imagining slobbery bulldogs bouncing on trampolines, I find myself wallowing in the opposite extreme, worrying about weighty topics like environmental conservation. And ever since I started down the path to being an author and illustrator, I’ve struggled to answer the question: How can I make a fun children’s book about a weighty topic?
 (And yes, I think it should be fun.)
 The answer began to reveal itself when I stumbled upon the Highline. The Highline is an abandoned, elevated railway running down Manhattan’s west side, and over the years it has become completely overgrown with wildflowers and trees. The notion that wilderness could spontaneously sprout up in the middle of a concrete island is something I thought everybody would find fascinating. And it seemed like a unique entry point to a book about caring for the environment.
 Children can smell a “Lesson” a mile away, so the story had to be as imaginative and entertaining as possible. Using the Highline as inspiration, I began dreaming up “The Curious Garden.” It’s two parts reality, one part fantasy, and zero parts preachy. “The Curious Garden” involves a boy in a dreary city who just happens to discover a place like the Highline, and he just happens to decide that he wants to take care of it.
 I do hope that this book can be used as a fun conversation starter about the environment. But for kids to care about that conversation, they must first care about the story. And so above all else, I hope “The Curious Garden” can be enjoyed simply as an engaging picture book.