Fantastic Flowers

by Susan Stockdale

Overview

It's hard to believe that these astonishing flowers are real—but they are!

With rhythmic, rhyming text and beautifully patterned illustrations, award-winning author-illustrator Susan Stockdale introduces readers to a seventeen unusual flowers that look like familiar objects. Can you imagine a flower that looks like a ballerina? A baboon? A napping baby? They're all real!

Energetic, rhyming text and vivid illustrations featuring distinctive unique shapes and patterns will delight budding botanists. Back matter provides color photographs of and more information about each flower, including common and scientific names and geographical distribution, as well as an explanation of the pollination process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781561459520
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD240L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Susan Stockdale began her art career as a textile designer for the apparel industry, providing her an opportunity to express her love of pattern and color. Today, pattern and color remain central to her work as the author and illustrator of critically acclaimed picture books that celebrate nature. Her books have won a variety of awards including the ALSC Notable Children's Book, NCTE Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts, NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K–12, and the Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Books of the Year. Susan lives in Maryland with her husband and is a popular speaker at schools and conferences.

Editorial Reviews

12/19/2016
Appearances can be deceiving in the world of botany. In crisp acrylic paintings, Stockdale (Stripes of All Types) highlights 17 flowers that resemble a variety of objects or creatures, as described in a jaunty series of rhymes: “Prim ballerinas, wild baboons./ Snakes standing guard, and spiraling spoons.” Photographs at book’s end identify the flowers—such as the parrot flower, whose dangling blooms look like birds in flight, or the dusky greenish-gray black bat flower—as well as their scientific names, native habitats, and species that aid in their pollination. A closing overview of pollination and the way that flowers’ distinctive shapes help attract pollinators lends additional heft to this handsome study of “Fantastic flowers in all kinds of shapes.” Ages 2–6. Agent: Gina Maccoby, Gina Maccoby Literary. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2017
PreS-Gr 2—What can you see in a flower? After a succession of successful titles for the very young about birds and animals, Stockdale turns her attention to plants, sharing what she sees when she looks at 17 "fantastic flowers." Two orchids, a friar's cowl, and an African daisy produce "prim ballerinas,/wild baboons./Snakes standing guard,/and spiraling spoons." Stockdale's rhyming couplets are perfectly crafted. They're as delightful to read aloud as her clean, bright acrylic paintings are to look at. These images are sometimes framed and sometimes fill entire spreads. For the most part, only flowers and a few leaves are depicted, but there's an occasional surprise: a ruby-throated hummingbird probes a trumpet creeper; a bee approaches a coneflower. These images remind readers that plants need pollinators to produce fruits and seeds. A final spread features a girl and boy tending a flower-filled garden. The back matter includes brief information about flowers and a picture index: photographs of the flowers portrayed, accompanied by scientific and common names, native range, and usual pollinator. The flowers are native to various areas around the world. They may be less familiar to adult readers than the birds and animals in the author's previous work, but for the intended audience, they offer an invitation to use their imagination in the natural world. VERDICT Will be welcomed wherever Stockdale's other titles are popular.—Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD

School Library Journal

2017-01-17
The unique shapes and patterns of 17 exotic and common flowers are exhibited in this optically striking display that points to the plants' visual similarities to other objects, animals, or people. Aided by melodic rhyming verse, large, boldly colored acrylic paintings reveal the ways the flowers mimic something else. "Flowers in shapes that surprise and delight. // Upside down pants, / a parrot in flight. // Prim ballerinas, / wild baboons. // Snakes standing guard, // and spiraling spoons." A first look through the artwork will bring recognition for some of the comparisons, but the patterned arrangements and varying perspectives will invite re-examination to catch them all. The significant backmatter supplements the art with crisp close-up color photographs of each flower coupled with its common and scientific names, area of origin, and pollinators. It will crystallize the painted images for readers as they revisit the paintings and realize the associations, which are often reflected in the flower's common names. For example "Bumblebees laughing" glosses the bumblebee orchid, while Australia's red spider flower is represented as "skittering spiders." This should encourage older preschoolers and early elementary children to look closely at nature's wonders in the garden for their own comparisons. This is a book to closely pore over—perhaps before a trip to the park or a botanical garden for real-life practice. (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews

"Optically striking. . . This is a book to closely pore over"—Kirkus Reviews

"Stockdale's rhyming couplets are perfectly crafted. They're as delightful to read aloud as her clean, bright acrylic paintings are to look at."—School Library Journal

"[A] handsome study of 'Fantastic flowers in all kinds of shapes'"—Publishers Weekly

"This lively blend of imagination and science might send children scrambling to their backyards or neighborhood parks to see what else they can spot in flowers."—Booklist

From the Publisher