“[The Box Garden] is fun, it is lively, it has intelligence.... What makes [Carol Shields] special, apart from her flashing wit, her generosity and her insight into the extraordinariness of ordinary life, is her formal inventiveness, at once modest and daring, like a Modernist seamstress.”

“Mrs. Shields’ novels [are] marked by sophistication and insight.” -The New York Times

“Carol Shields has a remarkable eye for the pockets of time and light held within the most unextraordinary milieu.”

“The novel’s protagonist, Charleen Forrest, is an appealing combination of common sense and irrepressible idealism, qualities which her status as a single mother and low-paid wage earner put to frequent test. Shields doesn’t exaggerate or sentimentalize these difficulties, but simply describes them in straightforward, low-key prose that brings us to the vital center of Charleen’s emotional life.”

—Toronto Star

“A shrewd and skillful storyteller.”

—Chicago Tribune

“Carol Shields has a gift for beautiful writing.”

—Toronto Sun