Don’t Eat Me! The Almost True Story of Belladonna

Gr 2-5–In this fairy-tale retelling of evolution, Belladonna is a delicious plant that keeps getting eaten by all manner of beasts and has to evolve to survive. Belladonna seeks guidance from the Raspberry and Oak and they introduce scientific concepts of cycle of life and plant defenses. Mushroom explains to Belladonna the relationship they have with each other and introduces the concept symbiosis and poison. Belladonna eventually evolves to be a poisonous plant that only pheasants can eat and which helps it spread seeds throughout the forest in a concept of co-evolution. The artwork is fantastical and gorgeous; plants and animals with a role in the story are anthropomorphized. The text is told in the form of a fairy tale of roughly 50 words per spread; however the concepts introduced are scientific concept and could lend well to a science class as an introduction to evolution.