Plant picture book recommendations are by Angela Ferraris, The Retired School Librarian.
(The content below contains Amazon affiliate links. When you buy through these links, Mrs. Ferraris may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. These titles may be found on my Amazon Storefront under Plant Picture Books– https://amzn.to/4nGY277 .)
❗This cumulative list grows over time, with the newest books always appearing at the top.❗
Afternoon on a Hill
by Edna St. Vincent Millay (Author), Paolo Domeniconi (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Edna St. Vincent Millay’s illustrated poem describes a little girl enjoying the beauty of nature around her as she frolics on the hillside, naps in the sun, and returns home at dusk.
Comments: This would make a wonderful bedtime book, bringing young readers happy dreams of walking in awe along a hill.
This also could be an elementary supplement for spring or earth day units of study.
It should be noted that the picture book is 16 pages long, half the length of most picture books. The hardback version came out in 2019, but the paperback was released this year.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Avocado Magic
by Taltal Levi (Author)
Summary: Ellie celebrates her birthday and is upset that her feet still do not reach the floor when she sits at the kitchen table. Her father shows her how to suspend an avocado seed with toothpicks into a glass of water.
He parallels Ellie’s slow growth to that of the seed, emphasizing that both need patience. Slowly the seed sprouts. It gradually develops into an avocado plant and grows alongside Ellie until it’s time both move out of the house.
When Ellie marries and has children, she brings the tree with her to plant in her own yard.
Comments: The metaphor for growth is absolutely beautiful!
The back section has instructions on how to sprout your own avocado.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Love Grows
by Ruth Spiro (Author), Lucy Ruth Cummins (Illustrator)
Summary: A young girl’s auntie sends her a plant per month with a tag of information about the plant. By the end of the year, the girl has a plant garden.
Comments: The front and back-pasted end pages outline the twelve plants with the Latin name, origins, and light preference.
This story is done in rhyme. The illustrations are gouache, colored pencil, and crayon.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
City Beet
by Tziporah Cohen (Author), Udayana Lugo (Illustrator).
Summary: Mrs. Kosta and Victoria plant and nurture a beet seed until it ripens. The woman begins to harvest the gigantic beet but cannot remove it from the ground, no matter how hard she tugs. Several neighbors stop by the garden to help pull, creating a line out to the sidewalk until the vegetable is uprooted with a big “SPROING!!”
Comments: There is an Author’s Note and Raw Beet & Garlic Salad Recipe in the back.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
For more details or to buy, click here.
Cool Green: Amazing, Remarkable Trees
by Lulu Delacre (Author, Illustrator).
Brief summary: A landscaper teaches his granddaughter why he loves trees. Each tree is described in a poem.
Back pages include sections: A Note From the Author-Illustrator, Why Trees?, Cool Facts About the Trees in This Book, For Further Exploration, and A Bibliography.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
For more details or to buy, click here.
A Dandelion (A Day in the Life Of)
by Ruth Owen (Author)
Summary: This narrative nonfiction picture book explains the life cycle of a dandelion from being a yellow flower to when it changes into seeds. The wind carries them to another location where they start over.
Comments: This is a smaller picture book about 8″ x 8.”
Details and buying options are on this book’s Amazon page.
The Weedflower
by Elizabeth Davaze (Author), Marianne Ferrer (Illustrator)
Summary: Sam notices a dandelion during recess and through her care and appreciation of it, several other students notice it as well. They nuture it, but soon find out that not everyone sees it as a beautiful flower.
Comments: This would make a nice read-aloud and discussion of nature all around us in our everyday lives.
Details and buying options are on this book’s Amazon page.
Doe’s Dandelions (Woodland Friends)
by Laura Renauld (Author), Jennie Poh (Illustrator)
Summary: In this Woodland Friends series, Doe is growing daffodils for the Spring Pedal Parade but keeps coming across annoying dandelion “weeds.” She soon learns from her friends how much joy and use they are to them.
Comments: This is a wonderful tribute to the benefit of some of the plants that are called weeds. Students can learn that all plants have value.
Details and buying options are on this book’s Amazon page.
Don’t Touch that Flower!
by Alice Hemming (Author), Nicola Slater (Illustrator)
Summary: Squirrel wakes from spring to find a new flower growing. He decides to protect it by not allowing any water to get on it, from bees landing on the petals, and even, putting it under a bucket.
Bird educates Squirrel about his good intentions are harming the flower instead.
Comments: This is a humorous read-aloud that opens a discussion of what plants need to thrive.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Details and buying options are on this book’s Amazon page.
A Flower is a Friend
by Frieda Wishinsky (Author), Karen Patkau (Illustrator)
Summary: An animal/creature is paired with a flower in the garden, and readers are asked why they coexist so well. Answers are in the book of how they benefit each other.
Comments: This is an excellent resource for introducing the concept of symbiosis. The illustrations made it clear and concrete.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Log Life (Tiny Habitats)
by Amy Hevron (Author, Illustrator)
Brief summary: This book is a narrative nonfiction that educates young readers about the life cycle of a giant fir tree that falls to the ground and transforms into a nurse log. As the log slowly decays in the forest, it becomes a source of nourishment for fungi, plants, insects, animals, and birds throughout the first year until it completely decomposes many decades later.
Comments: I had never heard of the term “nurse log” before and found it fascinating to learn about what happens to a fallen tree.
The illustrations were created using acrylic, marker, and pencil on Bristol board and then digitally collaged.
The back sections are More About Nurse-Log Habitats, Selected Sources, and Additional Reading.
Rating: 4.5/5 📗📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Trees: Haiku from Roots to Leaves
by Sally M. Walker (Author), Angela Mckay (Illustrator).
Brief summary: This is a collection of haikus about a tree’s life cycle and the changes of every season. There are many two-paged illustrations.
The back pages have information about a tree’s life, including wild and urban forests. There is also an author’s note and a glossary.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
For more details, click on this book’s Amazon page.
Willow
by Elisabeth Sophia (Author), Anita Bagdi (Illustrator)
Summary: This anthropomorphic story is about a tree creature standing by a lake going through all of the seasons with the insects and birds that consider her their home. A severe storm breaks her limbs and her soul. A flock of yellow birds helps rebuild her.
Comments: This is such a beautiful metaphor of grief and resilience. Teachers could ask how it feels when a storm comes into their lives. This would be a great book for SEL, exploring the healing process. I think it could also be shared as a way to explain how community (yellow birds) can help heal.
Rating: 4.5 📗📗📗📗1/2
Details and buying options are on this book’s Amazon page.
Orchards (Trip to the Farm)
by Ursula Pang (Author)
Brief summary: There are many orchards (farms where trees grow)producing fruit, nuts, seeds, syrup, and Christmas trees. Young readers will learn about each type of orchard.
Comments: I placed this book in the fall section as when I think of orchards, I think of apple or fruit orchards because those are the ones in my area that are harvested in the fall. I also had those teachers book requests for fall units before they went and visited a nearby apple orchard.
I enjoyed reading and learning about the different types of orchards and when they were harvested.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
The Tree and the River
by Aaron Becker (Author, Illustrator)
Summary: This wordless picture book begins with a tree growing on the banks of a river. It observes humans throughout the many decades changing with the seasons and years that have gone by.
Comments: Aaron Becker brilliantly captures the Mother Nature vs. humankind aspect through these detailed and thought-provoking illustrations.
This book can be used as a writing exercise of the perspective of the river during a specific time or over a time as it changes.
Rating: 5/5 📗📗📗📗📗
Details and buying options are on this book’s Amazon page.
See a Pumpkin Grow (See It Grow!)
by Kirsten Chang (Author)
Brief summary: Young readers will learn the pumpkin’s life cycle and what uses there are with this fruit.
Comments: Words and photos are large, with many nonfiction text features. The back sections are Glossary, To Learn More, and Index.
This book also comes in library binding.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
This is part of the See It Grow! series.
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
The Pie That Molly Grew
by Sue Heavenrich (Author), Chamisa Kellogg (Illustrator)
Brief summary: Molly plants a pumpkin seed and transplants the sprout to watch it grow into a vine with yellow flowers. After all of the care she has given to produce the ripened pumpkin, Molly bakes a pie.
Comments: Cumulative story of the pumpkin’s life cycle.
The back pages have four additional informative sections: American Pie, How to Turn a Pumpkin Into Pie, When You’re Ready to Make the Pie…, and No Bees.No Pie.
Rating: 3.5/5 📗📗📗1/2
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
Pumpkin Day at the Zoo
by Susan Meissner (Author), Pablo Pino (Illustrator)
Brief summary: It’s Pumpkin Day at the zoo when the zoo animals receive yummy pumpkins to eat from families who donate their uncarved and unpainted pumpkins.
Comments: The illustrations are vivid and humorous. The text is a mix of fonts and sizes that are fun to say aloud with many descriptive adjectives, alliterations, and all in rhyming sentences.
The back page does have a word about pumpkin donations to zoos.
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
There Was an Old Lady Who Picked a Pumpkin!
by Lucille Colandro (Author), Jared Lee (Illustrator)
Brief summary: There was an old lady who went on the school bus to a farm looking for a pumpkin patch. She and the students follow the sign and see many farm items before finding the patch. Each child picks out a pumpkin and hops back onto the bus.
Comments: This is a fun fall early reader in rhyme. The book is not the usual cumulative “There was an old lady” who eats something book.
Rating: 3/5 📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
One Day This Tree Will Fall
by Leslie Barnard Booth (Author), Stephanie Fizer Coleman (Illustrator)
Brief summary: In this narrative nonfiction picture book, we learn the story of a tree’s beginning as a seed, its growth, providing food and shelter to animals, and its continued contribution after it dies.
Comments: The illustrations were created using gouache, colored pencil, and Photoshop.
The back sections are A Tree’s Story Never Ends, Trees and People, Glossary, and Selected Sources. 0
Rating: 4/5 📗📗📗📗
Continue reading for more details and buying options on this book’s Amazon page.
The selected children’s books are chosen by a highly qualified retired elementary school librarian, who passionately reads and recommends picture books to teachers, school librarians, parents, grandparents, and other book enthusiasts.
Most of the books Mrs. Ferraris recommends are checked out from the public library. The only exception is for the complimentary copies that she receives for an honest review, which are duly noted.