Tag growing seeds

Be My Sunflower

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Be My Sunflower
Kathryn Simmonds and Rosalind Beardshaw
Walker Books

Vernon is a sunflower seed, one of many in the packet Miss Okoro has for the children in her class to plant. All Vernon’s fellow seeds are excited about being released into the world, a world Vernon knows a considerable amount about – scary things like birds, slugs and stormy weather – and thus he feels apprehensive.

Come the next morning a little girl named Carla is given Vernon. Her enthusiastic response , “Be my sunflower” makes the seed feel somewhat more relaxed. Time passes; Carla waters Vernon, the sun shines, warming him and it’s so snug and safe in the soil. Meanwhile the other seeds have begun to germinate

and they encourage him to do likewise, extolling the delights of the stars. Their enthusiasm makes Vernon curious: perhaps he could just have a teeny peep. The stars glitter in the night sky but just as Vernon is reconsidering his opinion of the big wide world, something large swoops by, scooping him up and then dropping him way way down into a sandpit. There the frightened seed stays all night. In the morning a little boy picks him up and hands him to Carla. Carla immediately recognises Vernon and puts him back in his pot.

By the end of the week, Vernon is the only seed that hasn’t sprouted. Carla feels devastated and cries lots of tears right over his flowerpot. The ungerminated Vernon knows that he must act: he spends the night pushing through the soil. Is he brave enough when morning comes to remain exposed? For Carla, yes he is and she is overjoyed. So begins a new way of being in the garden: Vernon grows and flowers and yes, he still knows about the scary things, but now he also knows about some of the wonderful things the world offers, the most important of all being a very caring little girl.

What a lovely story about finding the courage to emerge from your comfort zone and take on the world. Its warmth and reassurance shine through like the sun that sends its rays down to Vernon. Young children will be amused at the seeds having names and the way they talk to one another; will certainly empathise with Vernon and be rooting for him to emerge and reach for the sky. Rosalind Beardshaw’s mixed media, digitally worked illustrations of the personified plants are such fun.

Rainbow & Opposites / Little Mouse’s Big Secret

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Rainbow
Opposites
Jane Cabrera
Templar Publishing
Pleasing design and adorable illustrations are the hallmark of Jane Cabrera’s books for the very young. Her two latest offerings have both those qualities.
Rainbow has die-cut arched pages that build up to form a rainbow.
It’s a fun board book to enjoy together and each colour spread, with its named items …

could make a great starting point for adult and child to participate in some shared storying.
Opposites uses flaps and while young children acquire concepts such as slow/fast and wet/dry from real life experiences, books such as these can facilitate this development in an interactive, playful way, helping to reinforce the vocabulary.

Here you can play a game with your child or children by asking them to guess what is hidden behind each interesting shaped flap before being allowed to open it. This game also introduces the idea of predicting as an important reading strategy.

Little Mouse’s Big Secret
Éric Battut
Sterling
Little Mouse finds a yummy red apple on the ground and decides to keep it a secret. He buries it. Shhhh! Don’t tell. Friends pass by and each wants to know what Mouse is hiding. “It’s my secret, and I’ll never tell,” is Mouse’s reply to Bird, Turtle, Hedgehog,

Rabbit and Frog.
Nature takes its course and eventually, Mouse’s secret’s out – well and truly. Mouse takes a big decision; he shares and all his friends reap the rewards.

The spare, repetitive text and cute yet subtle illustrations make this best for sharing one-to-one or with a very small group of pre-school children. Equally, it’s ideal for beginning readers who are likely to be sufficiently savvy to realise what mouse doesn’t: that right behind his back, a tree is growing …

I’ve signed the charter  

Childhood Pleasures: Alfie Outdoors and The Jar of Happiness

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Alfie Outdoors
Shirley Hughes
The Bodley Head
The delectable Alfie is up with the lark and outside in the garden eager to start the day: it’s to be a gardening day with Dad but it’s one that involves a whole lot of digging and clearing, for the plan is to create a vegetable patch and plant some seeds. First though it’s back to the digging, which Alfie actually enjoys or rather, he enjoys investigating all the minibeasts he unearths from the soil.

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Come the weekend Alfie is allowed to choose his own seeds from the garden centre and he has a plan. He wants to grow carrots, not for himself but to feed to his friend Gertrude the goat at the goat sanctuary. The trouble is though, seeds don’t come up overnight, there’s a lot of waiting and watching involved. Just as Alfie is beginning to give up on his carrots, Dad notices some tiny seedings starting to sprout and with Alfie’s daily watering it’s not long before the first carrots are ready for pulling.

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Imagine Alfie’s disappointment then when he gets to the goat sanctuary to discover no Gertrude: she’s gone missing. Almost a day passes, a very sad one for Alfie and then yippee! Good news – Gertrude’s been found and is back where she belongs. All ends happily in true Alfie fashion next morning when he’s finally able to offer a juicy carrot to his favourite sanctuary resident.

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This is such a gorgeous book – another Hughes classic for sure. Shirley knows exactly the kinds of things that make young children content and never loses sight of them: Alfie’s preoccupations are those of every small child …

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and in her own inimitable way Shirley provides another tour de force every time she creates a new Alfie story.

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The Jar of Happiness
Ailsa Burrows
Child’s Play
Is happiness something you can put into a jar and keep bottled up? Young Meg seems to think so when she invents her very own kind, tasting of chocolate ice cream, apple juice and sunshine, smelling of warm biscuits and the seaside and containing all the best colours. Meg however doesn’t keep this happiness to herself; she uses her jar to cheer up glum friends

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or poorly relations; she seems to know just how to use it to maximum effect.
But, one day, Meg’s jar is nowhere to be found; so has her happiness gone forever?

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Fortunately not, thanks to all those Meg has shared her happiness jar with. It’s now their turn to show her their own special ingredients for happiness and none of them comes from a jar.

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Ailsa Burrows’ softly coloured characters have an endearing squidgy, cushiony appearance that make one want to snuggle up with them. And with its warm-hearted feel, this is a lovely snuggle-up-together and share with a young child kind of book.

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