The Gifts That Grow by Monika Singh Gangotra

This is a beautiful book, my 4 year old had so many questions when we were reading it, I love how beautifully diverse it is and so heartwarming too. The detailed illustrations are stunning and really bring it to life.

Love the feels of providing for and helping the future generations. Brings me all the happy feels!

We really enjoyed the sunflower sisters story, so was super excited to read the sequel.. and we love it!!

What an absolutely beautiful book! The illustrations are so magical, they flow from page to page and are like little dreams and memory’s throughout the book.

This is such a heartwarming book. Talking about generations, and family traditions. The Jamun tree is such a beautiful idea, a wonderful memory. A quote from the book “the person who plants a jamun tree, rarely gets to taste it’s sweet fruit”
The story tells how Amritas grandmother takes a cutting from her own Jamun tree planted by her great grandmother when Amrita is “just a seed” in her mums tummy, and then plants it when she is born. The tree then becomes a wonderful memory of her grandmother and a place she can hear her voice singing in the wind.

The Jamun tree is in Finns garden where they used to live. And at the end of the story, Finn and his Dads leave a basket of the Jamun fruit for Amrita and her family. The last fruit they decide to plant in their garden.

The story opens up to lots of questions, Matthew asked if we have any family traditions or things we have past down over time. We have a green house and Matthew loves spending time outside and nurturing the plants and this story amazed him how big and strong such small plants or seeds can become.

Such a beautiful story

I really enjoyed reading this book and my two boys really enjoyed this aswell. The front cover of a book is really important to me and I tend to choose my books based on how it looks. This book is so vibrant and colourful so it stood out straight away. I loved the shiny gold lettering and the gold detailing. The illustrations again are just so wonderful to look at. The colours are so rich and warm and very inviting.
This story covers a few different topics from, life
To death and family dynamics which is great for open ended conversation and questions. Myself and my boys have a veg patch in our garden so we know the importance of growing food to provide for others and we also plant trees for special occasions for future generations to reminisce on that special occasion. It teaches us that in life by nurturing plants, people and the environment it will have a huge benefit to the world around us.

We really enjoyed reading Sunflower Sisters so were very excited to read the sequel.

The Gifts that Grow is a heartwarming story about the love between generations of the same family. It centres around a jamun tree that Amrita's Grandmother (Nani) brought across from India to celebrate Amrita's birth.

The jamun tree produces a delicious purple fruit but even though Nani planted the tree she never got a chance to taste the fruit, "You see the person who plants a jamun tree, RARELY gets to taste its sweet fruits".

As the wind blows around them, Amrita's mother and Amrita are both reminded of Nani and the connection they have is so heartening.

This book really gives you all the warm feels. I love the idea of nurturing a tree that future generations of your family will reap the benefits of, yet you won't necessarily benefit from it yourself.

As with Sunflower Sisters, the first thing I noticed is the stunning illustrations and the beautiful colours used.

The boys and myself have been thoroughly enjoying reading it.

I really enjoyed reading this to my son, who is 3. He loved the colourful pictures and asked questions about the stories topic which opened up some lovely conversation about cultural traditions and different family dynamics. I think this is a book that will keep opening up his learning sphere and will help us both deliver into the wider world and it’s comparisons with home. We have an allotment and I love to teach my son about where things come from and how we are connected to what we grow, he would really like us to plant a Jamun tree.