The Reason for a Flower

Rating:
Summary: Why We Have Flowers?
Review: Children are constantly asking questions and sometimes they come up with a question you have difficulty answering, such as "why do we have flowers?". This book answers that question in a way that is both fascinating and entertaining for both children and adults. The illustrations in this book were quite lovely and almost tell a story themselves. The rhythmic cadence of the words introduces children to a biological vocabulary without being overwhelming, describes the different parts of the plants, explains the process of pollination, and illustrates what value plants have beyond just "something pretty to look." This book is a great book for teachers of young children for science related curriculm.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and educational! I was fascinated!
Review: I love this book! The text is fun to read and really easy to understand while introducing some big scientific words. And the pictures are big and colorful, and I really mean BIG and COLORFUL. But even more than that, they are accurate--the flowers, seeds, animals, and insects can all be identified down to the species. Towards the end it gets a little off topic, but even these pages are filled with interesting flower-facts that get you interested in further exploration of the world of flowers. There's even a touch of humor: after pages of large, flamboyant illustrations, the final page contains a single mushroom and the text, "Plants that have no flowers are fascinating, too." I had to laugh at the simplicity and effectiveness of this ending. Last, but not least, the endpapers have a wonderful drawing that shows a flower progressing into a fruit--a wonderful summary of the purpose of the book without using any words. This book definitely gets my recommendation for anyone who wants to introduce their kids to the world of science and nature in an unintimidating, yet accurate and enjoyable format.

Rating:
Summary: Great book for teaching pollination
Review: Ruth Heller's rhymes and beautiful pictures engage children and clearly illustrates pollination and the role of flowers.