How Francis Meilland Created a Flower of Hope for a World at War
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Candlewick Press
(pub. 5.172024)
48 pages
Ages 6 - 9
Author: Barbara Carroll Roberts
Illustrator: Bagram Ibatoulline
Character: Francis Meilland
Overview:
" Francis Meilland was passionate about roses. He loved their rich perfume, their buds unfurling in the summer sun, and their petals, soft as lambs’ ears. Like his father and grandfather before him, Francis cultivated flowers on the family farm in France. In his teens, he set about grafting and experimenting, determined to create a rose no one had seen before, and as the world braced for World War II, he rushed cuttings to rose-growing friends around the globe.
Six patient years later, word reached him: his rose had not only flourished; people were calling it the Peace Rose. An ideal gift for science and history buffs and for gardeners of all ages, this life story of a special flower is also a love song to living a dream from beginning to end, through sun and through storm."
Tantalizing taste:
"Now French soldiers needed food, and because they could not eat roses, Frances and his father dug up almost all of their roses - twenty thousand rosebushes on acres and acres of land.
And burned them.
Except for one tiny patch of ground where Francis kept a few rosebushes, the Meillands would grow only vegetables on their farm."
And something more: "Today, rose experts estimate that there are more than one hundred million Peace rosebushes blooming all around the world...
Francis Meilland followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfathers, growing roses on their farm in southern France. Francis's children continued the family rose business. Today, Meilland roses are still grown - and shipped all over the world - by Francis's grandchildren."
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