The short stories "It Used to Be Green Once" by Patricia Grace, and "Revenge Gardening" by Sue Harper, have many differences. The children are all ashamed of their mother because of how she acts and the car she drives at the beginning of the first story while at the beginning of the second the child is very proud of his mother and her garden. How well the children listen to their mothers is very different between the two, because in the first the children always obey the mother even when they don't want to while in the second the boy disobeys his mother several times. Finally, each story has a very different ending, in the first the family wins the lottery and they all live happily ever after and in the second the mother eventually loses the gardening battle to the neighbors. Both stories while they contain similar main characters have many differences.
             In It Used to Be Green Once, the children at the start were very ashamed and embarrassed by their mother. This is shown when they try to keep her from doing the shopping because they don't want her to be seen in public, and whine about the swimming suits that she makes them wear. Finally, when she buys a new car, they realize that the way she acts is what is best for the family. Matt, the main character in Revenge Gardening starts off being very proud of his mother because she is an excellent gardener. It is evident he is proud to the detail in which the colors and flowers in the garden are described as being bright and beautiful. Throughout the story, however, he grows less proud of his mother because of her attitude towards their neighbors. In both stories, the view of the mother changes from start to finish either improving or not.
             The mother in It Used to Be Green Once is a very powerful lady that always gets obedience from her children whether they like it or not. Even when she made her child wear a swim suit that was much too big for her the child still obeyed bec...