|
Gardens and Plant Science |
Azarian, Mary, A Gardener's Alphabet,
Houghton Mifflin, 2000. (PreK-4)
Alphabet book celebrating
the simple joys of gardening through woodcuts.
|
Barry, Frances, Big Yellow Sunflower, Candlewick, 2009. (Grades
PreK-3)
The petal-like pages open into a larger-than-life sunflower. With
each page, a worm, a bee, a bird and other creatures watch as a seed
germinates and grows in to a tall plant topped with a big bloom.
|
Bauer, Joan, Squashed, Puffin,
2001. (Young Adult)
If only Ellie's potentially
prize-winning pumpkin would gain 200 more pounds in time for the
Rock River Pumpkin Weigh-In, and if only Ellie could lose 20 or
so pounds herself, her life might be perfect. Well, at least it
would be perfect enough to give her the courage to make friends
with Wes - the cute new guy at school. She's well on her way to
winning big on all counts when frost and pumpkin thieves begin
to attack! The thing is, Ellie has the sass, humor, and smarts
to be a winner - whether or not her pumpkin breaks the scales
... if only she would realize it.
|
Bjork, Christina, Linnea in Monet's
Garden, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1991. (Grades 4-7)
Linnea has visited Claude
Monet's garden! In Paris, she got to see many of his actual paintings.
Now she understands what it means for a painter to be called an
Impressionist. This innovative art book for children contains
full-color photos of many of Monet's famous paintings.
|
Brown, Peter, The Curious
Garden, Little, Brown, 2009. (Grades
PreK-2)
One rainy day, Liam sights a stairway leading up to an elevated
train track, and climbs it, discovering a patch of wildflowers
and plants struggling to survive amid the tracks. Liam is determined
to turn this mangy growth into a garden, but first he must turn
himself into a gardener. He prepares for spring by reading gardening
books and gathers the tools and skills to bring his secret garden
to full bloom.
|
Burnie, David, Plant, Eyewitness
Books, DK, 2011. (Grades 4-7)
Photographs of flowers, fruits, seeds, leaves
and more offer a view of the natural history
of plant anatomy and growth. See the biggest flower in the
world, where a seed develops, what the inside of a plant stem
looks like, how a flower attracts insects, what a plant's reproductive
organs look like, and how a dandelion spreads its seeds. Learn
how plants defend themselves, why flowers are brightly colored,
how a plant can climb, why some plants feed on insects, and
why some plants have no seeds. Discover why some plants have
spines and stingers, what plants looked like millions of years
ago, how plants survive in the desert, how plants turn sunlight
into energy, and much, much more.
|
Carle, Eric, The
Tiny Seed, Little Simon,
2009. (Grades PreK-2)
Flower pods burst and dispatch their seeds to the
wind; the air-borne seeds are subject to many disasters; and the
ones that make it through the perils of the seasons to become mature
flowering plants are still susceptible to being picked, trod upon and
otherwise damaged. But nature allows for survivors, and so the
tiny seed grows into a giant flower, releasing its seeds and continuing
the cycle. Reissue of the 1970 edition, with expanded, expansive
collage illustrations.
|
Cherry, Lynne, How Groundhog's
Garden Grew, Blue Sky, 2003. Grades (K-2)
Groundhog loves to eat fresh
veggies from his neighbor's garden until a friend teaches him
to plant his own garden.
|
Colburn, Cherie Foster, Our
Shadow Garden,
Bright Sky, 2010. (Grades PreK-2)
When a beloved grandmother becomes ill and is no longer able to
be in the sun, her granddaughter is inspired to create a garden
she can enjoy. She and Poppa work together in secret to transform
Nana's garden into a night-blooming oasis, a place where she can
be with the creatures and plants that bring her happiness. As they
work with seeds, trowels and wheelbarrows to cultivate moon flowers,
star jasmine and other luminous, pale, sweet-smelling plants, they
discover the sensory beauty of the garden at night. Gardening facts
and tips accompany the illustrations, which were created by children
who are battling cancer.
|
| Eclare,
Melanie, A Harvest of Color: Growing a Vegetable Garden, Ragged
Bears, 2002. (Grades K-3)
A group of
neighborhood children transforms a bare patch of earth into a vegetable
garden, and in so doing, they learn how to plant in straight rows,
how to thin seedlings, and how to cope with slugs and worms. They
make notes on their efforts and compile useful lists of gardening
tips. The result is a colorful, graphic scrapbook-diary-photo album.
|
Edom, Helen, Science With
Plants, Usborne, 2007.
(Grades 2-6)
Basic science concepts are presented in fun, hands-on
activities for early elementary students. Topics covered include
seed germination, water transportation, tranpiration, stem and
leaf structure, pollination, vegetative reproduction, composting
and basic soil structure. The book closes with an excellent desription
of how our needs are met by plants.
|
Fleming, Candace, and G. Brian Karas, Muncha, Muncha, Muncha, Simon and Schuster, 2002. (Grades PreK-2)
After years of dreaming of planting a garden, Mr. McGreely finally takes hoe and watering can in hand and makes his dream come true. Late one night, three hungry rabbits appear. "Tippy-tippy-tippy, Pat! Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!" Packed with repetitive and onomatopoeic phrases, Fleming's tale will keep kids giggling and may even inspire them to chomp on a few carrots themselves.
|
Fleischman, Paul, and Judy Pederson,
Seedfolks, HarperCollins, 1997. (Grades 4-7)
Using multiple voices, Fleischman
takes readers to a modern inner-city neighborhood. where bit by
bit the handful of lima beans an immigrant child plants in an
empty lot blossoms into a community garden, tended by a notably
diverse group of local residents. Toughened by the experience
of putting her children through public school, Leona spends several
days relentlessly bullying her way into government offices to
get the lot's trash hauled away; others address the lack of readily
available water, as well as problems with vandals and midnight
dumpers; and though decades of waging peace on a small scale have
made Sam an expert diplomat, he's unable to prevent racial and
ethnic borders from forming. Still, the garden becomes a place
where wounds heal, friendships form, and seeds of change are sown.
|
Godwin, Sam, A Seed in
Need, Picture Window,
2004. (Grades PreK-2)
A colorful parade of inquisitive insects follows
the progress of a sunflower seed in this first look at the life
cycle of a sunflower.
|
Henkes, Kevin, My Garden, Greenwillow/HarperCollins,
2010. (Grades PreK-2)
A girl, her mother's helper in a flourishing garden,
imagines what her own garden would look like: "The flowers could
change color just by my thinking about it...The rabbits wouldn't
eat the lettuce because the rabbits would be chocolate and I would
eat them."
|
Hesser, Leon, The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Prize Laureate
Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger, Durban House,
2006. (Young Adult)
Nobel Prize winner for averting hunger and famine, Borlaug
is credited with saving hundreds of millions from starvation.
|
Juettner, Bonnie, The Seed Vault (Great Idea), Norwood House, 2009. (Grades 4-6)
The Seed Vault was created to preserve plant seeds as a way of protecting and insuring the world's food supply against natural disasters and diseases.
|
Kenin, Justine, We Grew
It, Let's Eat It!,
Tenley Circle, 2010. (Grades PreK-3)
Washington, DC, twins Annie and Veda learn about
the White House vegetable garden and want to grow their own fruits
and vegetables. But how can they do it, since they live in a city
apartment? Watch the twins and senior gardener Ida work and play
their way through planting, tending and harvesting in a community
garden.
|
Lovejoy, Sharon, Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Activities to Do in the Garden, Workman, 1999. |
Macken, JoAnn Early, Flip,
Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move, Scholastic, 2008. (Grades PreK-4)
Dandelion seeds drift on a breeze like parachutes. Coconuts plot
into the ocean and sail away on waves. Burdock seeds stick to socks,
sleeves and bunny fur.
|
Medearis, Angela Shelf, and Jill Dubin, Seeds Grow!, Cartwheel, 2000. (Grades PreK-1)
Plant germination and growth is described in rhyming poetry. Without complex detail, germination, plant growth, flowering and pollination are identified.
|
Middleton, Charlotte, Nibbles:
A Green Tale, Marshall Cavendish, 2010. (PreK-2)
When dandelions, the guinea pigs' favorite food, begins disappearing,
munched to "nothing more than bitten-down stalks," it's up to Nibbles
to rescue the last plant so new seeds can fly through the air.
|
Mora, Pat, and Elizabeth Sayles, The Rainbow Tulip, Puffin, 2003. (Grades PreK-3)
Despite her awareness that her Hispanic family is different from toher families in the neighborhood, Stella fits in well and enjoys school. When she goes to the May parade at school in a tulip costume of many colors, she worries she will look different from everyone else. However, her perfect execution of the Maypole dance, her teacher's approval, and, above all, her mother's quiet love contribute to a perfect day for Stella.
|
Noyes, Deborah, and Bagram Ibatoulline, Hana in the Time
of Tulips, Candlewick, 2005. (Grades K-5)
Rembrandt-inspired illustrations and text tell the story of tulip
fever's impact on a Dutch family.
|
O'Donnel, Liam and Richard Dominguez, Understanding
Photosynthesis with Max Axiom, Capstone, 2007.
In graphic novel format, follows the adventures
of Max Axiom, a science teacher and super-cool, super-scientist as
he explains the science behind photosynthesis.
|
Peterson, Cris, and David R. Lundquist, Seed, Soil Sun: Earth's Recipe for Food, Boyds Mills, 2010. (Grades PreK-3)
After establishing that most of our food comes from seeds that grow with the help of soil and sunlight, this book talks a little about each element in the title, how it relates to the growing plant and how photosynthesis allows the plant to make energy. The last few pages tell how we consume the plant's energy as food.
|
Richards,
Jean, A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds, Millbrook, 2003.
(Preschool)
Introduction
to seeds, their purpose, and growth. On each page, one or two
short lines of text appear beneath a large illustration. Can
be used as a read-aloud discussion starter, a prelude to planting
seeds and observing their growth, or in preparation for dissecting
fruits and vegetables in order to find the seeds inside. Two
final pages in question-and-answer format offer more tidbits
of information about seeds. Tiny silhouette people and suitcases
parading across the bottom of the pages visually emphasize the
suitcase theme.
|
Robbins, Ken, Seeds, Atheneum, 2005. (Grades
PreK-2)
Robbins uses a simple text and many crisp, large-scale photos
to introduce seeds to young children.
|
Schaefer, Lola M.,
Pick, Pull, and Snap: Where Once a Flower
Bloomed, Greenwillow,
2003. (Grades K-2)
Fold-out pages show how raspberries,
corn and other foods grow, as plants make blooms, seeds and fruit.
|
Silverman, Erica, and Marla Frazee, On the Morn of Mayfest, Simon and Schuster Children's, 1998. (Grades PreK-3)
This is the lass / with hair like a nest / who walked in her sleep / on the morn of Mayfest." So begins the cumulative rhyme that propels this picture book to its celebratory conclusion - a spontaneous Mayfest parade! Best read aloud.
|
Simpson, Kathleen, Genetics: From DNA to Designer Dogs, National Geographic, 2008. (Grades 4-6)
Simpson begins with an ancient mystery: An Egyptian mummy is found who may or may not be the long-missing pharoah Hatshepsut, but only DNA testing can prove if she was related to other Egyptian royalty. These archaeological adventures are paired with study of the heredity of pea plants done by Gregor Mendel in the 1800s.
|
Souza, DM, Freaky Flowers, Franklin
Watts, 2002. (Grades 4-7)
The book begins with a short course in botany that
stresses vocabulary and processes. Subsequent chapters discuss
different ways plants attract pollinators through colors, odors,
and habitats. The last chapter acts as a warning that many plants
are endangered because their pollinators are threatened, emphasizing
the balance of nature. Small sidebars offer interesting bits of
trivia about similar plants.
|
Stevens, Janet, Tops & Bottoms,
Harcourt Brace, 1995. (K-4)
Hoping to rise above his
level of poverty, clever Hare strikes a deal with a rich and lazy
bear in which Bear will contribute the land while Hare will provide
the labor for a profitable harvest.
|
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Gyo Fujikawa,
A Child's Garden of Verses, Sterling, 2007. (Grades PreK-2)
The classic book of poems for children, originally
published in 1885, can be used to connect students with agriculture.
From golden apples to meadows or climbing cherry trees and enjoying
the activities of a cow, these poems celebrate 19th Century farm
life.
|
Tagliaferro, Linda, The
Life Cycle of a Sunflower, Capstone, 2007. (Grades PreK-2)
This early reader book captures the development
of the sunflower from seed through germination, growth, flower development
and pollination and on to seed development.
|
Recommend
a book.
Back to Ag-Related
Books for Children and Young Adults
Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom
Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom is a program of the Oklahoma Cooperative
Extension Service, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food
and Forestry and the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
|
|