Plants Can't Sit Still
by Rebecca E. Hirsch; illus. by
Mia Posada
32 pages; ages 5-10 (and older!)
Millbrook Press, 2016
theme: plants, nature, nonfiction
Plants don't have feet or fins or
wings,
yet they can move in many ways.
If you look closely, you discover
that plants can't sit still! Maybe you've seen a plant move - a seedling
starting to grow in your garden. You run out to see if the beans have started
to grow and there's a green sprout poking out of the soil. Run in for a glass
of lemonade, and by the time you've returned something thick is poking out and
by the next day there's a seedling, unfolding its leaves.
Or maybe you planted some morning
glories by the fence and sort of forgot about them - but a few weeks later you
notice they've climbed up and over and around. That's plants moving!
What I like LOVE about this book:
This is such a fun book to read - it makes you want to get up and move around.
It validates any kid who's been accused of being unable to sit still.Seriously,
if plants - the things rooted into the ground - if they can't sit still, then
why should we be expected to?
I love the simple, yet accurate,
language that Rebecca Hirsch uses to show how plants move - in space, time, and
developmental stages. Plants wiggle and squirm, they float and fly, they hitch
rides. They definitely don't sit still.
I also LOVE the bright, bold
watercolor and collage illustrations. Mia Posada's artwork is astounding and
brings every page to life. I especially like the Venus Fly Trap.
Beyond the book: Check out these
videos of plants moving - using time-lapse photography -
- The twining motion of morning glory vines as they seek support for climbing.
- Six days in the life of a cardinal vine
- exploding seedpods!
Investigate the plants living in
and around you. Do they move? How would you know if they did? Watch a plant for
the week and try to determine whether - and how - it might be moving. Roots?
Stem? Leaves? Seeds? Do petals open and close at certain times of the day?
Hunt for action words - verbs -
that show how plants move. Here's a few to get you started: creep (roots),
climb (vines), fold (petals), twirl (maple seeds).
Drop by next week for some
hands-on plant science activities.
Now for an interview with author,
Rebecca Hirsch. I just had to ask Rebecca why she wrote this book, and she
graciously answered Three Questions.
Archimedes: What inspired this
book?
Rebecca: (confessing that she
became an "accidental" plant biologist in graduate school) Plants are
so fascinating. They move in a different time dimension than we move. Many
people don't pay attention, but you can see them move. Raspberries, for example
- their canes arch and bend down, and where they touch the ground they take
root. In that way, the plant moves. One of the cool things I learned in my
research was that 200 years ago, scientists were discovering ways that plants
were like animals. Even trees have social networks - a "wood-wide
web".
Archimedes: What sort of research
did you do for this book?
Rebecca: Observation - I see a
lot of this plant movement in my garden, especially the climbers (pole beans,
cucumbers) don't stay put. I also read a lot of books and papers by scientists
and watched some good time-lapse videos of plant movements (my favorite is
watching morning glories send their tendrils out). And I interviewed a
scientist doing plant research.
Archimedes: What cool new things
about plants did you learn while working on this book?
Rebecca: I learned so much - too
many things to include in a book! So many plants disperse their seeds by
exploding. And there are so many ways that climbing plants can climb. Some use
leaves or tendrils to wrap around something, and some have glue - a sticky
substance exuded by rootlets. And some plants move by floating along in
flooding rivers until the water recedes; then they take root.
Thank you, Rebecca. You can check
out her website here.
Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. We're also joining PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books. Review copy from the publisher.
