Fantastic Flowers

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.