WASHINGTON — From the beginning, Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden has been an overachiever, churning out more peppers, parsley and eggplant than expected. Now, the first lady has added a 271-page book to her gardening résumé.
In “American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America,” Michelle Obama holds out the raised vegetable beds on the South Lawn as “an expression of my hopes” for the nation’s children. “Just as each seed we plant has the potential to become something extraordinary, so does every child,” she writes.
The $30 book, released today by Crown Publishers, traces how a city kid from the South Side of Chicago who became a working mother and then a political spouse found herself fretting on that first planting day, March 20, 2009, about whether an L-shaped stretch of soil would prove fertile ground for a national conversation “about the food we eat, the lives we lead and how all of that affects our children.”
The book is full of colorful, glossy photos of luscious-looking vegetables. Bo, the popular family dog, gets plenty of cameo appearances. There are maps tracing the growth of the garden over the past three years, and stories about community gardens across the country.
