"Australia is an amazing place, with many unique animals and plants. ... Do you know much about Australian native plants? Do you know that there are some Australian native plants that trap and eat insects? And others with seeds that are spread around in poo? ... If you don't know much about Australian native plants, don't worry; once you've read this book, you'll know heaps." (from the introduction to Plantastic).
My friend Dr Robin Morrow and I are working on a virtual presentation for IBBY Australia which explores Alphbabet books. Plantastic is not really intended to be an alphabet book but it uses the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet as a way to organise the content.
In this book you can read about familiar Australian flowering plants - Acacia, Banksia, Christmas Bush, Gum Tree, Kangaroo Paw, and Tree Fern. And others that are less familiar (to me) - Rice Flower, Noon Flower, Yam Daisy, and Ziera.
It is clear an enormous amount of research has gone into creating the illustrations for Plantastic. You can see inside this book here.
This book contains accurate botanical and colourful illustrations which delight the reader. The illustrations are consistently positioned on each page with one larger size illustration on the left side and smaller details on the opposite pate to highlight specific traits of each plant such as flowers or fruits.
The half title page and title page invite the reader to explore the plants contained in this A to Z book. The final end paper gives young readers an excellent visual representation of the scientific names for the parts of plants. Special mention needs to be made of leaves of each plant. These are done both artistically but also with scientific accuracy. The addition of a bee on front and back the covers, on the first pages and again on second last spread gives a sense of completion to the book and also adds a touch of whimsy. The bees work like bookends to the text.
Catherine Clowes is a botantist and a teacher which means the text in this book is both scientific and easy to read. Here is the web site for the illustrator Rachel Gyan.
After reading this book with a young child it might be fun to spend time identifying all of the plants on the front cover. And when you go on a bush walk you could snap some photos and then come home and see if the plants in your area are included in Plantastic.
Plantastic contains extensive back matter - a distribution map, and a detailed glossary. I especially love the botanical illustrations and the activity which is suggested on each page:
Hibiscus "See if you can spot some pollen in a Hibiscus flower. If you touch it you might notice a few pollen grains fall off onto your finger. You could even try transferring some of this pollen from your finger to the pistil of another flower, just like a pollinator!"
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