Love Grows

by Ruth Spiro, Lucy Ruth Cummins (Illustrator)

Overview

A delightful celebration of family, plants, and the boundlessness of love told in lively, poetic letters from aunt to niece with bright, irresistible illustrations!

Every month, an aunt mails a letter and a houseplant to her niece and . . . LOVE GROWS!

I'm sending this pothos, so while we're apart, you'll look at its leaves and know you're in my heart.

In the vein of We Are the Gardeners and Dear Girl, this beautiful story is the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, birthdays, graduation, and more! Young readers and gardeners will also love the sidebars on each spread with fun and informative facts about the plants.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063237742
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/26/2023
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,070,874
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Ruth Spiro is the author of over 30 children’s books, including the best-selling Baby Loves Science series, How to Explain Coding to a Grown-Up, and Made by Maxine. Her books have been praised by The Los Angeles Times, NPR, TODAY, Popular Science, and the National Science Teaching Association. Ruth speaks regularly at schools and early childhood conferences across the country. She lives in suburban Chicago, Illinois, with her husband, two daughters, and many, many plants! www.RuthSpiro.com.

Lucy Ruth Cummins made her author-illustrator debut with the ALA Notable picture book A Hungry Lion, or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals. She has also illustrated This Is Not a Valentine, written by Carter Higgins, and The Love Letter, written by Anika Aldamuy Denise, as well as wrote and illustrated Stumpkin. As a teenager, Lucy taught herself how to type on an old-fashioned typewriter with just her toes, and even wrote a few love letters this way! The youngest of six children, she was born in Canada, where she lived in an actual log cabin; she was raised in Upstate New York and currently lives with her little family in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her online at www.lucyruthcummins.squarespace.com.

Editorial Reviews

10/23/2023

Foliage proves the food of love for a child recipient in this epistolary primer on how to cultivate the spirit of Valentine’s Day any time of year. At book’s start, an auburn-haired child with pale skin, and their ever-present canine pal, receive a leafy pothos plant and a special rhyming note from their beloved Auntie, as a reminder of a recent visit to “our ‘plant family!’ ” The months and seasons pass, and Auntie sends additional notes, and more greenery, which soon lushly flood a windowsill. Spiro and Cummins tenderly vine a green-thumb vibe through every scene, noting each plant’s name and a brief fact alongside accurate renderings. When Auntie and her own peppy pooch arrive for a reunion, it’s a reminder that “from the top of your head/ to the tips of your toes,// just like your new plants/ my love for you grows.” End pages provide additional plant details. Ages 4–8. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

The combination of accurately depicted plants with occasional silly rhymes and loving endearments make for a delightful balance of education and fun. This book brims with both warmth and information. A sweet introduction to houseplants. — Kirkus Reviews

A picture book about the love between a niece and her aunt, told through a year’s worth of letters and gifts. The letters are told in rhyme and include feelings of familial love and plant care tips. — School Library Journal

Foliage proves the food of love for a child recipient in this epistolary primer on how to cultivate the spirit of Valentine’s Day any time of year. Spiro and Cummins tenderly vine a green-thumb vibe through every scene. — Publishers Weekly

Spiro's epistolary rhyming text makes for a delightful reading experience, and each delivery features a tag serving as identification and descriptor of the gifted plant. Splashy illustrations in gouache, colored pencil, and crayon have an appealing scribbly quality that feels casual and inviting. Sure to make a budding botanist out of any young reader. — Booklist

This book should not be missed by young green thumbs or by aunts and uncles with special nieces or nephews, although they may want to plan for a trip to the nursery. — San Francisco Book Review

From the Publisher

11/01/2023

K-Gr 3—Spiro's (Made by Maxine) new picture book is about the love between a niece and her aunt, told through a year's worth of letters and gifts. The letters are told in rhyme and include feelings of familial love and plant care tips, as each letter is accompanied by a plant. The plants come with an interesting fact or name that will appeal to children. The spider plant is named Spider and sent as a friend for Pothos, her first plant (which has heart shaped leaves). The appearance of the Monstera plant is linked to a favorite food of kids (cheese), and the fern, which comes just in time for Halloween, segues into another topic kids love: dinosaurs. The white gift tags that appear on each page supplement the plant information contained on the front and end pages of the story. A through line of coziness and continuity is conveyed by the interactions with the main character and her pet dog. They each seem to be enjoying the plant gifts, and in a safe way, because the little girl teaches her dog not to eat or touch the plants that may harm an animal. The author also includes a note at the beginning of the book about handling plants safely. VERDICT Kids are going to ask for plants to tend to after this book; pair it in the classroom with real plants and more straightforward nonfiction guides.—Tanya Boudreau

School Library Journal

2023-09-23
Following a visit, a beloved aunt sends a child a series of houseplants and letters written in verse.

Each letter contains facts about the plants, like their varying needs for light and water or a Monstera plant’s Swiss cheese–like holes, while sidebars shaped like tags provide more specific information. After the child and a pet dog examine the plants, they’re set in a window or by the child’s bed, accumulating gradually, just as the aunt’s clear affection for the child likewise builds in the letters. Several months go by, with holidays and seasonal changes showing the passage of time, before the child and aunt reunite. The combination of accurately depicted plants with occasional silly rhymes and loving endearments from the aunt make for a delightful balance of education and fun. The sidebars do occasionally interrupt the rhythm and flow of the letters, but the neat details they include make up for this mild inconvenience. Whether read aloud to a child just becoming interested in plants or gifted from an aunt to a beloved nibling, this book brims with both warmth and information. The aunt, child, and other family members are depicted with light skin. The endpapers include facts about plants, and the book opens with a note to adults warning about the dangers of potentially toxic plants.

A sweet introduction to houseplants. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews