Nursery Crimes

After finishing Fforde’s Nursery Crime Division novel, I couldn’t resist picking up Arthur Geisert’s picture book Nursery Crimes.

In this case, the word nursery refers to a place where plants grow. A couple, Jambo and Marva, moves from France to Iowa to start a tree nursery. Unfortunately for the couple, and their twelve children, someone keeps stealing their topiaries. Jambo and Marva fret over money and plot to catch the thieves.

The storyline is rather serious—particularly when the couple expresses money woes—but the illustrations save the book from absolute dreariness. Without the pictures, I would never have known that Jambo, Marva, and their children are pigs. I also wouldn’t know they live in a railroad station/school bus.

Despite the charming illustrations, and they are charming, the story just might cause both children and parents financial nightmares.