It Starts with a Seed

PreS-Gr 2—The small seed grows into a sycamore tree in this poetic natural history lesson. "As days turn to weeks,/the seedling has grown:/it's a dragonfly perch!/A ladybird throne!" The spare lines of poetry and simple-colored sketches framed on facing pages follow the tree's growth through the seasons as it spreads beneath the ground and into the air. "It's not just a tree/but a wonderful world,/full of beetles and grubs/and squirrels and birds." Except for that dragonfly and two ladybirds in an early view, the smaller creatures don't appear, but there are assorted birds and a few squirrels up above and rabbits and even two foxes beneath the grown tree. The tree's life cycle is pretty well captured, though two terms will be unfamiliar to picture book listeners/viewers/ "With each passing year/the trunk builds up its rings" offers a teaching moment. The reference to "…their leaf-laden,/bark-bound arboreal home" is heavier going than the rest of the poem. Imported from England (hence the grubs and ladybirds), this offering concludes with a single page printed with the poem that folds out with a double-page view of the seeds and realistic leaves through the seasons. These are labeled with added facts about the sycamore tree. "A single tree can produce as many as 10,000 seeds a year."