Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal*

I love this author/illustrator team!
A grandmother and her granddaughter enjoy the fruits of the garden and witness the interactions of insects, animals, and plant life in this ecosystem.
The reader also views the garden starting in late winter through the other seasons.
Although this book offers a lot of didactic opportunities, the author and illustrator permit fun, sweet interactions between grandmother and granddaughter.
I loved viewing the insect and animal life under the ground.  I also enjoyed the sketches of different plants/vegetables on the end pages.
In the back are three pages with further explanations of the animals and insects featured in the book.
**Highly, highly recommend.
Strategies: vocab expansion/word choice, compare/contrast (Read this team's book Over and Under the Snow and compare/contrast it with this book), main idea/details