Beyond the Pawpaw Trees

It all began on a lavender blue day—the kind of day when anything can happen. It was on such a day that Anna Lavinia’s father saw a double rainbow and went chasing after it. And it is on such a day that she and her cat, Strawberry, set off on their journey beyond the walled garden where the pawpaw trees grow, to a place where the buttercups bloom pink and the laws of gravity don’t always apply. Here Anna Lavinia will test her mother’s advice “Never believe what you see,” against her father’s wise words “Believe only what you see,” and just maybe she’ll finally be able to use the mysterious silver key her father left behind when he went chasing after rainbows.

Beyond the Pawpaw Trees is a tour through a land as strange and wonderful as Oz, filled with people as delightfully batty as any in Alice’s looking glass. It is a place to return to again and again, beautifully brought to life in Palmer Brown’s fanciful words and intricate, sugar-spun drawings.

Customer Reviews:

A wonderful children's book to get lost in...

By William Knot - January 31, 2005

I read this book as a very small child and was fortunate for me that my mother saved this book from her own childhood. This is a wonderful story to read, as well as look at the curious yet charming drawings of the author's renditions of pawpaws, pawpaw trees, Anna Lavina(the heroine), her mother, father, a mirage, even Anna's cat, Strawberry(which by account of another character is the exact color of raspberry fluff), and more. The story begins with Anna Lavina, a young girl who lives alone with her mother in a distant house, set behind a grove of pawpawtrees. Anna sets off on an adventure to travel to her aunt's house, and the story takes off. Anna's father is missing through part of the story, as he is "off chasing rainbows". Anna sees and hears her world with such a charming nature as to be irresistable. Anna avoids blue spots on the carpet, as they are "unlucky", observes the sky as the color of "forget-me-nots", travels in a train with a woman with as many packages as she is... read more

to Lavender Blue days

By Andrea Dunlap - September 29, 2006

This book is absolutely lovely and completely divine. I used to read it at my grandma's house and then the pages fell out of the book. Without consulting me Grandma threw the book away! I was heartbroken and even worse--I couldn't remember the title or the author, only that there was a train that stopped when the tracks came together on the horizon and there were camels, tea cosies and a floating oasis. Luck was with me the other day at the friends of the San Francisco Library book sale and I was reunited with the story. Fearing I had made it into something greater than it had really been (you know they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc) I read it quickly. To my delight it is still one of the best, most charming and imaginitave stories I have ever read. It's written in a loose and conspiratorial manner with line drawings on nearly every page (and a map! in the center). I too wish they would reprint this book and its sequel, because I want to give the book to all of my... read more

Delicate and Charming

By K. Brabender "educated in reality" - May 29, 2007

This children's book is a companion volume to The Silver Nutmeg, two utterly charming, whimsical, fascinating, and inventive books about Anna Lavinia and her family and pets. Wonderfully unusual fantasy situations happen to Anna Lavinia in her child's world. Both books are so delightful that when I read one as a child, I never forgot it.