Finding our "Best Buds"

I’ve been spending a lot of time in my garden this summer, and I’ve come to realize that, for me, many of the plants (and insects) in my garden have become … friends. Best Buds, even. So I’m delighted to share this book with you today. It’s not my ordinary STEM book offering, though there are plenty of stems in it. 

Best Buds 

by Becky Scharnhorst; illus. by Jiarui Jiang 

40 pages; ages 4-8

‎Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2025

theme: friendship, plants, moving

On his first day in a new town, Spencer made a friend. It was easy!

Spencer and his mom are moving into a new house, and Mom is worried about making friends. But Spencer has NO trouble finding friends. He met Fred on the first day, just sitting outside in a box under a tree, and Vera was found next to a fire hydrant.

Spencer cares for his plant friends. He takes them to the playground and to reading circle so they can hear the stories. Everywhere he goes, people ask “wouldn’t you like a real friend?” as if plants couldn’t be friends. Some days Spencer would load up his wagon with a few friends and go to the park. That’s where he meets Daisy, whose friend is much smaller and has no leaves at all!

What I like about this book: I like how Spencer appreciates each plant’s personality: They could be “late bloomers” or shy, or even a bit wild, but it didn’t matter because he loved them anyway. As he comes to accept the differences of his plant friends, readers will accept that friendship doesn’t depend on what you look like. It’s more about accepting people – or plants – as they are.

I also love the illustrations. The detail of each plant, and the diversity pictured is just plain fun – from the front endpapers to the last – and every page in between. 

Beyond the Books:

Do you have any plant friends (trees are included)? Draw a picture of your favorite and if they don’t have a name, give them one!

If you were a plant, what kind would you be? Would you be tall? Spiky? Flowery? Would you have long, thin leaves or leaflets that are bunchy? Draw your plant portrait!

Get to know the plants growing in your neighborhood on a first-name basis! Are there tiny flowers in the grass? Are there bold, yellow dandelions growing between cracks in the sidewalk? Are there trees you’d like to get to know better? Draw a map of where your plant friends live.

Hop over to the GROG and find out more about author Becky Scharnhorst in this lovely interview with former librarian and author, Kathy Halsey.

We’ll join Perfect Picture Book Friday once they resume. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. A huge thank you to author Becky Scharnhorst for a review copy.

Look Up - Stars Are Falling!

 The annual Orionids meteor shower has been happening this week, and is predicted to peak this weekend. Just how many meteors are we talking about? According to the Washington Post, meteorologists are expecting about 23 meteors to shoot across the sky every hour. I can't think of a better time to check out this book!

The Meteor Shower: Kaleidoscope Club  

by Marie Mazas; illus by Joëlle Passeron 

128 pages; ages 7-10

‎Blue Dot Kids Press, 2024

This is book two in this fun, STEAM adventure series and Nour and August, best friends and tree-house engineers, are at it again. This time they are drawing up plans to build something cool for watching the meteor shower. But first, they need to convince the Mayor to turn off the lights so they can have a dark-sky night. There’s already a law on the books that requires public lighting – street lights, public buildings, monuments – to be off between 1 and 7 am in an effort to reduce energy consumption. But nobody is enforcing the law, and the Mayor isn’t interested in pushing the issue.

So Nour and August engage in a flyer campaign: Keep the Stars Bright! Turn off Your Lights! This is a bold initiative for August, who is afraid of the dark. 

Just as the community seems to rally around the Dark Night idea, a fair moves into town. People have been waiting for the carnival rides and the games for a whole year – but the carnival lights threaten Nour and August’s efforts for stargazing. And an unlikely friendship threatens the Kaleidoscope Club.

What I like about the book is that it focuses on problem-solving and includes lots of STEM stuff: 

• designing and building a model space capsule using recycled materials (engineering, art);
• migration and light pollution (biology, conservation science);
• meteors and constellations (astronomy); and
• kitchen chemistry

I also like the back matter, which discusses in more depth how light pollution disrupts animal ecosystems, wastes energy, and even affects human health. And there’s a list of “what you can do” about it.

Thanks for dropping by today – and remember to watch for the meteor shower this weekend!. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Mole and Vole are Friends

Expedition Backyard: Exploring Nature from Country to City (A Graphic Novel) 

by Rosemary Mosco; illustrated by Binglin Hu

128 pages; ages 5-9

‎Random House Graphic, 2022

Mole and Vole are friends, much in the way the Skunk and Badger are friends. Or Frog and Toad. They each have their cozy home and they go off on adventures together.

Vole’s attitude toward adventuring is … well, let’s hear Vole explain: “We could swim across a stream full of hungry fish…. We could climb the tallest tree in the forest and sway with the wind!”

Mole is the sort who carries along a sketchbook and prefers an adventure on the tamer side. “What if we went looking for a Swamp Milkweed flower?” Mole would love to draw one!

So Mole grabs their leaf-bound sketchbook, and the two friends set off. In five chapters, Mole and Vole share adventures in the forest near their homes, inside a house, and in the city… a place they didn’t intend to explore, but ended up there by accident. 

What I love about this book: Each page is divided into a few large panels, making it easy to follow the story. Some pages present a single illustration, such as a page from Mole’s sketchbook, and each chapter includes a spread that shows a birds-eye view of their adventure for the day. In the city park, we can follow their route around the trees, see the birds they meet, and even “hear” their calls – via the magic of speech bubbles.

I like that no matter where they are, they find nature to explore. They even go on a night adventure, and meet a whole new cast of friends. 

And of course, I love that there is back matter! In this case, it’s hands-on activities, including how to draw Mole and Vole, keeping a nature journal, getting involved in a community garden, and more.

Beyond the Books:

Make a simple nature sketchbook. All you need is paper, cardstock for the cover, a twig (in a pinch a pencil will do), a thick rubber band, and a hole punch. Here's how to do it.

Try your hand at creating your own graphic nature story. Learn how to make a 4-panel comic here. And you can find printable comic sheets here and here. 

Rosemary Mosco writes and illustrates the bird and moon science and nature cartoons. Her recent picture books are Flowers Are Pretty Weird! (reviewed here) and Butterflies are Pretty Gross! (reviewed here)

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.