A Fruit Is a Suitcase for Seeds (Exceptional Nonfiction Titles for Primary Grades)
reSchool-Grade 2-Richards's carefully worded information provides an excellent introduction to seeds, their purpose, and growth that should be easy for young children to grasp. On each page, one or two short lines of text appear beneath a large painting. Hariton's use of bright watercolors adds sensual appeal to her illustrations of various fruits, vegetables, animals, and habitats. This cleverly presented book can be used as a read-aloud discussion starter, as a prelude to planting seeds and observing their growth, or in preparation for dissecting fruits and vegetables in order to find the seeds inside. Two final pages in question-and-answer format offer more tidbits of information about seeds. Tiny silhouette people and suitcases parading across the bottom of the pages visually emphasize the suitcase theme in a manner that is appropriate for the intended audience. Allan Fowler's From Seed to Plant (Children's, 2001) presents similar material and is accompanied by color photos and diagrams. Helene J. Jordan's How a Seed Grows (HarperCollins, 1992) and Gail Gibbons's From Seed to Plant (Holiday, 1991), both of them a bit more sophisticated, contain additional information on how seeds grow into plants and would make great companions to Richards's book.Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OHCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.