How Not to Kill Your Plant
by Magda Gargulakova (Author) Hannah Abbo (Illustrator)
A comprehensive guidebook for kids on proper houseplant care, featuring bold illustrations and engaging infographics.
Houseplants can add a touch of green to any living space, and caring for them can be a relaxing and rewarding hobby. For kids interested in learning more about plant care, this comprehensive guidebook covers all the basics and more, teaching kids all about the different types of houseplants, their growth habits, and the best practices to care for them. Divided into three sections, How Not to Kill Your Plant provides all the information kids need to ensure their houseplants thrive:
- The Basics of Care: Learn about the essential elements of plant care, including watering, lighting, and soil.
- Encyclopedia of houseplants: Identify and learn about common houseplants, including their ideal growing conditions and common issues to look out for.
- Cultivation practice: Discover tips and tricks for repotting, propagation, and other plant care techniques.
Highlights include:
- A glossary of basic plant terminology (e.g., substrate, fertilizer, humidity, etc.)
- Step-by-step instructions for taking care of houseplants
- Advice on choosing the right plant
- Various problems you can expect to encounter – and ways to solve them
Images accompany the text in a fun yet logical and orderly fashion, such as this numbered list for repotting:
- Water the plant well the day before repotting. This will make it easier to remove from its pot.
- Remove the plant from its pot.
- As you carefully release the roots, remove old, excess soil from the plant.
- Remove old, rotting roots.
- Having selected a pot with a drainage hole and of appropriate size, wash this pot in soapy water.
- Put a drain (e.g., a layer of expanding clay balls or pebbles) in the bottom of the pot. (Plants watered in a tray do not need a drain.)
- Add a small layer of the new substrate.
- Place the plant in the new pot.
- Fill any remaining space in the pot with the new substrate.
- Tamp the soil down gently with your fingers, ensuring that the plant is well anchored. Don’t fill the pot with soil right to the top, but to 1 cm below it – you must leave space for watering.
- Water the plant well (unless it is a cactus or succulent – in which case wait 2 weeks before watering).
- Your plant has been potted. Hurray!!
How Not to Kill Your Plant is suitable for children aged 6–9 interested in growing houseplants. Geared toward kids who love plants and want to develop a lifelong hobby of plant care, this guidebook is ideal for any young ones looking to green up their home, as well as adult readers and flower shop patrons.
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Review quotes
"How Not to Kill Your Plant is a wonderful resource for children interested in houseplants or gardening, even adults with less than a green thumb! The author included so much detail! From decisions needing to be made about what daylight and care we can provide the plants, how to chose the right plants for us, house plants throughout the seasons, and much, much more! The illustrations are delightful. They are brightly colored and detail the plants wonderfully." —Cherokee Crum, YA Books Central
"Delightful advice for any age! Layout, info, and attractive graphics will appeal to visual learners on how not to kill your plant!" —Andrienne C., Azusa City Library
"With beautiful modern illustrations and a simplistic approach to basic plant procurement and care, this is the perfect comprehensive guidebook to anyone looking to care for plants." —The Novel Neighbor, Bookseller
"This book is a wonderfully detailed introduction to the basics of plant care. It uses straightforward, easy-to-understand language and detailed illustrations to inform the reader about everything from plant identification to watering guides to pest identification. A section details some of the most common and popular houseplants and their care guides, as well as general plant care information such as season care instructions. I think the book would be appropriate for children and adults interested in owning and maintaining plants. One detail I found to be especially helpful while reading was the use of numbered guides that referenced you to other pages for more reading information. All in all, I think this would be an excellent choice of book for anyone that owns or is interested in plants." —NetGalley-Librarian
"This was a delightful read about caring for and celebrating houseplants. Although it is categorized as a children's book, I can see myself gifting this book to an adult (along with a new plant that is featured in the book). I thought this book had great information, and the illustrations were so charming. I learned a few things about caring for my houseplants, including that some are not pet-friendly!" —Margaret M., NetGalley-Reviewer
"This is a fantastic plant book. I would not classify this as only a children's book, but just a how to book for anyone learning the basics of taking care of plants. This book is broken down into three main parts: The Basics of Care, Encyclopedia of houseplants, and Cultivation practice. The added tips and illustrations are a nice touch. Lots of us and children are visual learners and seeing an illustration of different pots or tools rather than just reading the name is beyond beneficial. I love this book and it is not only a must for my home library but a recommendation for many others." —Stephanie C., NetGalley-Reviewer
"I mean I know this is intended for kids, but as someone who kills just about every plant possible and knows nothing about gardening or caring for plants this was helpful for me. I also have two tweens who are interested in growing their own little plant and this seems like a decent guide for them to begin learning. The illustrations make it very easy to understand, there's a whole glossery of definitions and simple explanations about how to care for plants. On top of the good information, the illustrations are bright, cheerful and fun to look at. Overall a win." —Crystal D., NetGalley-Reviewer
"Everything I needed for the lack of green thumb I have! Straight forward and to the point! I took notes, heres to not killing my plants!" —NetGalley-Reviewer
"This was actually really cute and really educational at the same time. I found a lot of really good houseplant care information while finding the illustrations adorable!" —Amanda W., NetGalley-Reviewer
"This was a cute nonfiction guide to growing and keeping plants. I liked the illustrations. This would be a great resource for kids interested in keeping plants." —Melanie G., NetGalley-Librarian
"I'm definitely one of those people....the ones who already know how to kill a plant in just a few easy steps. This book has shown me so many of the reasons why I've inflicted those death sentences on my plants and how to keep from killing more in the future. What I felt had to be hard or above my skill set, has been easily shown and proven to help even those of us like me happy and green. Definitely buy this for someone you know who does not have green thumbs." —Denice Langley, NetGalley-Reviewer
"This book saves plants! Really. A fab breakdown of how to care for indoor plants. Yes, some need a spritzer. From watering, to lighting, to fertilizer, and more this book is a handbook will help your plants live and help you live better indoors." —Katie M., NetGalley-Librarian
Magda Gargulakova has a degree in Art History and is a co-founder and also curator of the OFF/FORMAT gallery in Brno, Czech Republic, which exhibits and promotes contemporary progressive art, mostly by young artists. She worked for a time in marketing, but her love affair with books has been a long one. For OFF/FORMAT, she has edited and published several art publications. Since 2019, she has added to this experience as an editor of literature for very young readers at Albatros Media, using her two daughters for quality control.
Shunsuke Satake is an independent illustrator specializing in stylized animal designs. After working as a graphic designer, he became an independent illustrator in 2007. He has created illustrations and characters for advertisements and books, and published picture books both in Japan and abroad. In 2020, he released his collection of works PRESENT. He is also a lecturer at Kyoto University of Arts, and has been awarded the Good Design Award (Japan / 2014, 2017). He is based in Japan.
JNF037030 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Science & Nature | Flowers & Plants
JNF022000 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Gardening
