A Seed Grows

To understand how a seed becomes a sunflower, you have to peek beneath the soil and wait patiently as winding roots grow, a stalk inches out of the earth, and new seeds emerge among blooming petals.

With evocative and lively illustrations, A Seed Grows offers a close-up view of each step of this process and the ways in which flowers and seeds depend on other creatures, with a striking fold-out spread of a full-grown sunflower and additional material at the back of the book explaining the science of plant life cycles.

Reviews

  A Sibert Honor Book!

  A Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book!

  “Clear, engaging, beautiful, and perfectly pitched to its young audience—simply brilliant.”
—The Horn Book, Starred Review

  “Like tissue paper held up to a sunny window, Portis's pictures have the glow of stained glass, offering texture and inviting readers to come a little closer to see what she has created ... As with all of Portis's books, natural science is served sunny-side up, without a word out of place, in this essential guide.”
—School Library Journal, Starred Review

  “Employing spare language and sunny, stippled multimedia spreads that belie their quiet complexity, Portis gracefully traces a sunflower’s cycle from seed to sprout to plant—and back again ... It’s a volume almost as jam-packed as a seed itself.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Youngsters will feel a sense of awe as they witness the magic of a seed’s first tender shoot and the symbiosis of nature ... [A] useful primer on one of nature’s miraculous cycles.”
—Kirkus Reviews