Lydia Grade is sent to live with her Uncle Jim while her parents look for work.  She happily settles in to her new home where she makes friends with Ed, Emma, and the neighbors.  With their help she plants what she believes, is a secret garden to make her uncle flash a rare smile.  After Uncle Jim sees her big surprise, he presents her with a special cake covered in flowers.  Lydia Grace believes that cake equals one thousand smiles. (Houhton Mifflin Harcourt Collections, 2001)

This lesson was created as part of the Basal Alignment Project, during which teachers created CCSS-aligned lessons for existing literary and information texts in basal readers. All page numbers and unit/week designations found in this lesson relate to the edition of the basal reader named above. If you are using a trade book or different edition of this title, the page/unit/week references in this lesson will not match. Consult the content referenced in the body of the lesson to determine appropriate page numbers for your text.