Miss Rumphius

By Barbara Cooney
Image of Miss Rumphius
FormatUSUK
Paperback$7.99 Buy£5.00 Buy

The book is the life story of a little girl who grows up and travels around the world. And everywhere she goes she sows lupins. As an old lady she is lying in her bed and she looks outside and sees that the countryside is covered in beautiful lupins. I encourage parents to read it to their young children to inspire them to get out there and take an active role in caring for and creating their local environment.

Experts who have recommended this book

In an interview on Guerrilla Gardening

Interview Extract:

Your final book, Barbara Cooneys Miss Rumphius, is actually for children.

Yes, I’d love to say that I read this as a child and it’s stayed with me every since, but that would be a lie. I was told about it by an American who had read my website. He actually went to the trouble to send it to me through the post. Although it’s not very big in the UK it’s very well known in the States. The book is the life story of a little girl who grows up and travels around the world. And everywhere she goes she sows lupins. As an old lady she is lying in her bed and she looks outside and sees that the countryside is covered in beautiful lupins. I encourage parents to read it to their young children to inspire them to get out there and take an active role in caring for and creating their local environment. I grew up with a trail of biscuits leading to a wicked witch’s cottage in Hansel and Gretel. In some ways this is the positive version of that.

Read full interview

About Richard Reynolds

Richard Reynolds, a strategic planner for an advertising agency, learnt how to garden from his mother and grandmother. Frustrated by the lack of a garden on his council estate in Elephant and Castle, one of South London’s toughest areas, in 2004 he decided to brighten up its many roundabouts.