Elizabeth Gordon (1866 - 1922) was a juvenile fantasy author whose works include Flower Children, Bird Children, and Mother Earth's Children, a delightful collection of poems about the "frolics of the fruits and vegetables." Illustrations by M.T. Ross engage children to identify a variety of plants and birds.
Her passion to help children connect with the food they eat is evident in her forward to Mother Earth's Children:
"A seed, little friends, is really a plant or a tree all wrapped up in a little brown bundle. If you plant it in the ground it will grow, and when it is old enough it will bear fruit, because God has made it so.
Among all the children of Mother Nature, the fruits and vegetables are probably the most useful to us. Wherever we may go some of these little people are there before us, ready to help us by giving us food and to make life easy and joyous for us.
In your Mother’s garden you will always find many familiar friends; in the fields the graceful Grain children will nod and beckon to you; in the orchard the Fruit children will peep out at you from their leafy homes; along the roadside the gay little Berries will give you a friendly greeting, and in the forest you will find the little wild Grapes climbing trees and playing hide and seek with the Bird children.
The publishers, who have already given you the Flower Children, Bird Children, and Animal Children, wish to join the author and the artist in their grateful acknowledgment of the wonderful appreciation which these books have received, and to hope that these new comrades will prove as fascinating as those whom you already know.
For myself, little friends, I thank you from my heart.
Elizabeth Gordon.
