The changing scene

“It was nine months in the making,’’ says Nick Caristo, project manager. “It took longer to design it than to build it,’’ adds Herb Schaal, who researched children’s books by Maine authors or with a Maine theme. Ultimately he incorporated about 20 of them into a garden party for all ages. “Kids don’t come by themselves,’’ he says.

Visitors can spend time with a topiary Miss Rumphius in the Lupine Meadow, based on the title character of the book by Barbara Cooney; cool their tootsies in Carol Hanson’s whale fountains inspired by Chris Van Dusen’s “Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee’’; clamber across steppingstones and bridges connecting the Blueberry Islands and atop Sal’s Bear, from Robert McCloskey’s “Blueberries for Sal’’ and made by Nancy Schon, the same artist who made the “Make Way for Ducklings’’ statue in Boston’s Public Garden; board “Tidely Idely,’’ from McCloskey’s “Burt Dow Deepwater Man’’; imagine the red long johns flirting with the rosebud housedress on the clothesline, as told in Ethel Pochoki’s “Rosebud and Red Flannel’’; and puzzle through Veronica’s Maze. Some features are designed especially for children, such as the bear cave and the massive, wheelchair- friendly tree house.

The gardens’ library is a treasure trove of imagination, stocked with more than 300 children’s books. Kids can take the books anywhere in the garden, read them, then return them. Or they can listen to a storyteller reading from the giant chair handcrafted from driftwood by a volunteer. Afterward, they can bring the stories to life, reenacting scenes in this storybook world.