Audiobook · read by volunteers
Johnny Crow's Garden
L. Leslie Brooke (1862–1940)
Read by Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023) · 1 chapter · 3 min
About the book
Johnny Crow made a garden, and a very pretty garden it was. So begins a picture book that has delighted children for more than a century. In rhyme, a cheerful crow plants his garden, and one by one the animals arrive to share it: a lion, a stork, a fox, a monkey, a crocodile and more, each doing something delightfully ridiculous. L. Leslie Brooke’s drawings are part of the fun, with comic expressions and clever details, and you can look at them while listening, since the book is freely available online. The verse is simple and rhythmic, ideal for reading aloud, and the repetition invites children to join in. At a few minutes long, it’s a perfect bedtime treat or a quick break in the day. A small classic of nursery nonsense, read here by a single LibriVox volunteer.
Introduction
Leonard Leslie Brooke (1862–1940) was an English illustrator and author of children’s books. Johnny Crow’s Garden, first published in 1903, is the work for which he is best remembered. It is a picture book in verse about a crow, his garden and the visitors who come to stay, and it was followed by sequels. The book belongs to a tradition of nonsense verse and picture books for the very young that flourished in Britain in the decades around 1900, and it is still enjoyed for its comic timing.
The book’s charm comes from the pairing of text and image. Brooke’s drawings are full of humour, and the animals have a wonderfully solemn manner that makes their antics funnier. The rhyming text is short, bouncy and ideal for reading aloud. A recurring refrain gives children the chance to join in, which is one of the reasons the book has remained popular. It is the sort of work that rewards repeated reading, as small details emerge each time.
This recording consists of a single short chapter of just a few minutes and is read by one LibriVox volunteer. The pictures are part of the book’s charm and can be found online alongside the text, but if you do not have the illustrations, the verse still works on its own, because Brooke’s rhythms are strong and the story is easy to follow.
For parents, teachers and grandparents, it is an easy addition to the bedtime rotation. For anyone interested in the history of children’s books, it is a fine example of the early twentieth-century picture book at its simplest and most effective.
Public domain
L. Leslie Brooke died in 1940: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text