The Seedling That Didn't Want to Grow
by Britta Teckentrup (Author)
This story about a reluctant seedling packs a powerful message about the benefits of being different. It's early spring and below the earth's surface seeds are just starting to sprout. One by one they stretch through the dirt and towards the sun, extending their shoots and leaves and growing tall. All except for one seedling, who isn't quite ready. Each page of this gentle but powerfully evocative book demonstrates how some of us are different. As most of the seeds transform into strong flowers, they block out the sun from the one left behind. But the little seedling persists, twisting and turning until, with the help of bird and insect friends, it finds its own place to grow and blossom. In the end, this little seed turns into a flower that's just as beautiful and healthy as all the others.
Hailed by Publishers Weekly as delicate, complex, extravagant, beautiful and strong, Teckentrup's inviting and softly colored illustrations provide the perfect backdrop for this moving tale about being unique while subtly teaching kids about the life cycle of plants.
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Kirkus
A seedling flourishes in her own time, with some loving support along the way... Bursting with verdure and pollinators, a gentle love letter to late bloomers emphasizing the beauty of biodiversity. (Picture book. 4-8)
Publishers Weekly
In Teckentrup's (My Little Book of Big Questions) story about a single plant, collage-style spreads show a field of seedlings springing up in a sunlit spring meadow. Two animal characters, Ant and Ladybird, notice that one seed hasn't sprouted: "Let's just sit next to her and wait. Maybe she needs more time," they decide. Under Ant and Ladybird's thoughtful supervision, the plant sprouts, grows, and starts to creep through the undergrowth, dense and vine-like as it searches for sun, joined by "the animals of the meadow." Some of the plant forms are simple and graphic, but as the growing seedling reaches the light, she blossoms in a baroque flush of delicate blue flowers, visited by birds, butterflies, and insects before fading to an autumnal gold, scattering seeds "far and wide," and drying in a gentle representation of death. The animals, gathered on one side of the page, tell their friend goodbye. But when winter is over, seeds spring anew, and the cycle starts again. Without sentimentality or special effects, Teckentrup makes readers feel nature's significance by zeroing in on a very small corner of it. Ages 3-7. (Mar.)
Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JUV039140 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance
JUV029010 - Juvenile Fiction | Nature & the Natural World | Environment
