Product Description

Share the excitement of a small girl who discovers how a tiny seed gradually grows into a beautiful sunflower. Caroline Mockford's delightful text and endearing illustrations make a marvellous introduction to the way in which plants grow. For teachers and parents, there is a page of advice on growing seeds, bulbs and a sunflower den.

Product Details

• Published on: 2007-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

From Amazon.com
One winter morning a seed lies on the ground. "What's this?" wonders a little girl passing by. Together with an equally curious bird and a wise ginger-colored cat, she plants the seed and begins the wondrous process of growing a flower. What will it be? Every day she waters the patch of soil, and watches over the tender sprout when it emerges. And one summer day, when she runs outside, there is a giant sunflower, beaming up at the sun! The little girl continues to nurture her flower, visiting it, telling all her secrets. And when the fall day comes that the sunflower's head droops, the little girl carefully carries it to school and gives it to her teacher, who helps the class begin the cycle anew. Next summer, every child in the class has a magnificent sunflower!

Caroline Mockford's exquisite acrylic paintings fill every page with lush seasonal color and almost childlike depictions of the girl, the cat, the bird, and the flower. In the simplest and sweetest of terms, Mockford describes the natural life cycle of a flower. Following the story is a page for grownups who may want to go into greater depth with children about roots, shoots, flowers, seeds, and growing sunflowers. (Ages 3 to 7) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly
Dynamic art redeems a modest text in this cheerful debut from a British author/illustrator. The tale revolves around a seed that lands in a springtime garden, where it is observed first by a bird, then by a girl. The girl plants the seed and watches as it sprouts a sunflower, tends the flower during the summer and, with her classmates, preserves its seeds for the following spring. Mockford's attempt to streamline the story creates a few gaps (e.g., the sunflower appears in a sudden burst of glory, with no prior mention of even a bud), but the irresistibly bright acrylics more than compensate. The perspectives and line are childlike but sophisticated, and the colors combine in novel and arresting ways. The opening page, for example, features a fuchsia and orange sky, a citrus yellow-green sward of grass, a vivid pink tree trunk plus a sweep of brown earth in the foregroundAall of it toned down with spacklings of white paint. The composition, like the book itself, captures the bubbly mood of spring. Ages 2-5. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2-Childlike illustrations, done in richly colored acrylics with thick black lines to outline characters, are the best feature in this sweet but slightly overwritten story. In early spring, a bird, a little girl, and a cat find a seed, plant it, and watch it grow. As the months pass and the sunflower grows and blooms, the little girl cares for it, visits it, and even tells it "all of her secrets." When fall comes, the girl carries the huge blossom to school to share the seeds with her classmates, who start growing them during the winter. The next summer, "every child had a beautiful, smiling sunflower!" The tired plot is reminiscent of other, better stories, such as Eve Bunting's Sunflower House (Harcourt, 1996) and Miela Ford's Sunflower (Greenwillow, 1995). A last page includes information on roots, shoots, flowers, seeds, and growing sunflowers.
Jane Marino, Scarsdale Public Library, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.