Flora Forager ABC

by Bridget Beth Collins

Overview

Botanical artist and Instagram sensation Flora Forager makes her children's picture book debut with this imaginative alphabet book featuring real and imaginary animals created with natural materials gathered from her botanical foraging in wild places and from her garden.

Bridget Beth Collins, known as Flora Forager on Instagram, has created her beautiful children's book debut from natural materials gathered from her botanical foraging where she makes her home in the Pacific Northwest. Children will be fascinated by her amazing botanical creations, from angel fish to zebra, and inspired to learn their ABCs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632172099
Publisher:	Sasquatch Books
Publication date:	03/12/2019
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	772,542
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Flora Forager is BRIDGET BETH COLLINS: nature lover, painter, writer, Instagrammer, and botanical artist. She forages the materials for her creations from foliage and flowers plucked from the sidewalks, meadows, and woods of her neighborhood. She is the author of books and stationery featuring her unique floral artwork including The Art of Flora Forager, Flora Forager: Butterfly Notecards, and Flora Forager ABC.

Editorial Reviews

01/14/2019

Collins, known as “Flora Forager,” debuts with an alphabet book full of collage objects and animals crafted from leaves, flowers, and other organic materials. A camel (for C) is created from delicate pink petals; a jellyfish (for J) hood is formed from a veiny leaf, and its arms and tentacles from dried twigs and trailing flowers. Other animals include a thistle and seeded eucalyptus koala scene, a leopard with tiger lily flower spots, and a blue petal narwhal. Collins’s compositions show delicate artistry and an eye for design; the entry for the letter X (notoriously challenging in alphabet books) is especially clever—the scientific name for a Cape ground squirrel: “Xerus inauris.” Ages 2–5. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"The author cleverly exploits her materials' textures, shapes, and color gradations in compositions arranged against pastel backgrounds. The yak's petal-filled amber coat is appropriately shaggy, and the succulents used to create the elephant endow it with a rounded (albeit greenish) form"—Kirkus Reviews


"Collins’s compositions show delicate artistry and an eye for design;"—Publishers Weekly

"This is the most beautiful alphabet book we now own"—Alexis Lampley, Drop and Give Me Nerdy


"It is creative, gorgeous, and awe-inspiring, and you will love seeing how she utilizes these materials to turn each letter into a little masterpiece."—Happily Ever Elephants

From the Publisher

2018-11-21

Collins, whose Flora Forager brand has yielded adult books and a large Instagram following, presents her first children's title.

Utilizing petals, seeds, foliage, and other botanical bits, Collins constructs an animal abecedary from angelfish to zebra. After a four-line introduction, the text consists of the animals' names with their initial upper- and lowercase letters printed large in the upper corners of the pages. The author cleverly exploits her materials' textures, shapes, and color gradations in compositions arranged against pastel backgrounds. The yak's petal-filled amber coat is appropriately shaggy, and the succulents used to create the elephant endow it with a rounded (albeit greenish) form. Some of the most charming depictions are of animal groups. Illustrating "Quail," a parent and three chicks sport pansy-petal faces and fiddlehead topknots as they file past an assemblage of pale green hellebore blooms, ferns, and ivy. Compositions are not evenly successful, however. For "Giraffe" and "Turtle," Collins snips petals and blooms to approximate the angular patterns of their respective hide and shell; these look less integrated than other depictions, such as "Zebra." There's no correspondence in size among the animals, and two fanciful creatures ("Dragon" and "Unicorn") are included. While "I" is for a generic "Insect" (evidently a type of beetle), ever pesky "X" is for "Xerus inaurus (Cape ground squirrel)."

Despite unevenness in the total package, many families will doubtless be smitten with Collins' intricate tableaux—and perhaps be inspired to forage and create their own compositions. (Picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews