A Seed Grows

An understated, useful primer on one of nature’s miraculous cycles.

Employing spare language and sunny, stippled multimedia spreads that belie their quiet complexity, Portis gracefully traces a sunflower's cycle from seed to sprout to plant--and back again. On each page, a term on the verso corresponds in hue with an image on the recto, focusing the reader's attention on a single visual component. The word seed, for example, written in black, attends the arrival of a striped black sunflower shell at right ("A seed falls"). A page turn later, a brown-hued soil faces its referent, in which the seed nestles. And the font size of a bright green grows enlarges over several spreads as the seedling does the same. But the pages offer much more than an experiential play-by-play for youngest readers. In addition to incorporating mention of the seedling's early needs (soil, sun, rain) and maturation phases (bud, flower, seed), text and image hint at the plant's external effects (for those who "nest in the leaves// in the tops of trees")--and, poignantly, its place as participant in the natural world. It's a volume almost as jam-packed as a seed itself. Contextualizing back matter concludes. Ages 3-6. (June)

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

PreS-Gr 1—Like tissue paper held up to a sunny window, Portis's pictures have the glow of stained glass, offering texture and inviting readers to come a little closer to see what she has created. A seed grows, but on the title page that seed is still in the bird's beak. It falls, settles into the soil, and sun and rain are simply present, part of the process. Soil, sun, water, air, and the seed takes root, grows tall, forms a bud, blossoms into more seeds, which feed more birds, and the cycle is complete. This approach to nature requires no embellishment, no anthropomorphizing, no cheerleading to lure in young eyes. Four- to five-word sentences on the left set off every gemlike illustration on the right, breaking format only when the book needs to be turned sideways so that the full glory of the sunflower's height can be revealed. The back matter includes charming layouts of the parts of the seed and root, what the seed needs to sprout, and the life cycle of the sunflower plant. Complicated scientific principles are rendered simply and gracefully in scenes that seem to deliver a dose of Vitamin D. VERDICT As with all of Portis's books, natural science is served sunny-side up, without a word out of place, in this essential guide.—Kimberly Olson Fakih

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

★ "Clear, engaging, beautiful, and perfectly pitched to its young audience—simply brilliant."—The Horn Book, Starred Review

★ "Like tissue paper held up to a sunny window, Portis's pictures have the glow of stained glass, offering texture and inviting readers to come a little closer to see what she has created. . . . As with all of Portis's books, natural science is served sunny-side up, without a word out of place, in this essential guide."—School Library Journal, Starred Review

★ "Employing spare language and sunny, stippled multimedia spreads that belie their quiet complexity, Portis gracefully traces a sunflower's cycle from seed to sprout to plant—and back again. . . It's a volume almost as jam-packed as a seed itself."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"An appealing addition to the STEM shelf. . . ."—Booklist