“Putting thecultincultivate”: a rhetoric of guerrilla gardening inGreen Valentine

Urban Farm DB summary

A literary analysis examines Australian author Lili Wilkinson's 2015 young adult romance novel Green Valentine, in which two teenage protagonists rebel against their local council through guerrilla gardening. The article argues that this illegal activity functions as a political protest standing in for the protagonists' voices, silenced in public debate about the environmental future despite being too young to vote, and concludes that the novel's rhetoric of gardening underscores the importance of community and political action in stopping capitalist production of spaces that impair the environmental future.