Reddit Reddit: Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening, Carol Wall

Today, Karen enjoys the reading of Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening, by Carol Wall

How I Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green thumb and an Open Heart.

Available for $27.95 via Booktopia.

Publishing date: 3 March 2014

As someone who loves flowers and gardens, I was attracted to the title of this memoir even before I read the publishers note.  Imagine my surprise when in the Prologue, the Author states her hatred for flowers!

Carol Wall is a white woman living in a neighbourhood in America where an African man will definitely be noticed. Despite being raised by parents who teach her to not to judge a person by the colour of their skin, Carol nevertheless jumps on her brakes when she notices such a man in her friend Sarah’s garden.  She learns his name is Giles Owita, he is from Kenya and he is very good at gardening

When Carol employs Mr Owita as her gardener, she means for him to tidy up, get rid of weeds and dispose of the azaleas she hates!  He seems to not fully understand her instructions when he tells her he will prune and fertilize the azaleas.  Despite a beautifully written note in English Mr Owita leaves in Carol’s letterbox, she wonders if perhaps he has trouble understanding her instructions.  Who wins?  Do the azaleas stay or go and what about Carol’s hatred of flowers? You will have to read the book to learn the answers to those questions, although the subtitle may give you a hint.

Nonetheless, whilst the garden is the heart, the soul of Mr Owita’s Guide to Gardening is friendship. Despite their huge cultural differences, Carol Wall and Giles Owita become friends, although both have secrets not easily revealed. Discussions about the garden turn into discussions about life

Many people in this day and age have difficulty understanding a friendship between a man and a woman which does not threaten the other relationships in their lives. Carol and Giles are two beautiful souls meeting at the right time in their lives for a friendship to blossom.

This is a life-affirming memoir beautifully written by this first time author, so much of which resonated with me on a deeply personal level. Both Carol Wall and Giles Owita have faced many challenges in their lives and Carol tells their stories with humour, pathos and love.

Available for $27.95 via Booktopia.

Reddit Rating

About the Author

Carol Wall is a writer whose articles on family life have been popular features in magazines like Southern Living Magazine and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for more than twenty years. Juggling her passion for her work as an English teacher with a busy family life raising three children, a foster son and exchange students from Lithuania and Croatia provided her with plenty of material.
From her first teaching job at East High School in Nashville, Oprah Winfrey’s alma mater, Carol built a reputation for connecting with even the most reluctant student through her gift for storytelling. She taught English in both public and private high schools in Tennessee and Virginia, and served as Writer-in-Residence for Roanoke County Schools. She is a member of the PEO Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organisation which boasts 250,000 members worldwide and provides college scholarships for women.
Carol lives with her husband in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening is her first book.

See more about Carol at http://www.carolwall.com.
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