Review

Lisa Creamer's Teachers' Guide

John S. Stokes Jr.

Mary's Gardens Associate, Lisa Creamer, has written and privately
published a Mary Garden Teachers Guide describing numerous classroom
Flowers of Our Lady projects - some for younger children and others
for high school classes.


   


"Mary Gardens for Children - Project Guide for Home & School Use"
by Lisa Creamer, 36 pp., 10 illustrations; Morning Star Gifts,
Olney, MD, April 2001 - $10.00 first class mail to anywhere in the
U.S.. Check or Money Order.

     Parents' and Teachers' Guide
     c/o Creamer
     17408 Moss Side Lane
     Olney. MD 20832

	e-mail - creamers@comcast.net


Review:

Lisa Creamer's "Mary's Gardens for Children" is a classroom and
home schooling guide for teaching children the story and care of
the "Flowers of Our Lady" - flowers named in medieval times for
their symbolism of The Blessed Virgin and her life, virtues, and
mysteries.

Included are instructions for growing the flowers in miniature
classroom or home dish or windowsill Mary Gardens; and for starting
them from seed on sunny windowsills for moving to outdoor school,
parish or home Mary Gardens - as a prayerful work of veneration,
devotion and religious instruction.

The book first teaches the history of flower symbolism and its
place in religious life in the days before printing, literacy,
books and schools. It then proposes the gathering of illustrations
of the symbolic Flowers of Our Lady, that, lovingly viewed, they
first may be "planted" as imaginative "Mary Gardens of the Heart".
This is then followed with instructions for actual indoor
Windowsill and Dish Mary Garden projects; indoor seed starting;
Fall bulb planting; Spring annuals planting; outdoor Rosary Gardens
and patio Container Mary Gardens; and for composing virtual
bulletin board Mary Gardens of flower drawings and photo clippings.

Also included are numerous additional project ideas.  The book has
Appendixes of 300 Flowers of Our Lady grouped by horticultural type
and climatic requirements; traditional prayers to Mary; children's
books about Mary; reference to extensive information on the Flowers
of Our Lady and Mary Gardens available from the Internet; and a
Bibliography of articles and books.

The text is illustrated with delightful drawings by the author and
her three grade school children.  In general it is organized and
written in a style suited for the teaching of both grade school and
high school students, and for the planting by all of Mary Gardens,
small or large, as beautiful expressions of Marian veneration and
devotion.