Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase through one of the affiliate links, I will get a very small commission or referral fee at no additional cost to you. You can read more on my affiliate policy page.
The wonder of gardening.
The mechanics of how a seed turns into a flower or a fruit.
The beauty of hope for a better tomorrow and contributing to the regeneration of nature with our own two hands.
All of these can be serious topics for adults and magical subjects for contemplation for kids.
Gardening and caring for plants teaches children where food and beauty come from. But it also teaches them patience, delayed gratification, cause and effect and co-creation. Cultivating and loving the land that feeds us. Connecting to something bigger. The transformation that comes with planting a seed and seeing it grow. Hope for tomorrow. Excitement for what’s to come if you take action. Mindfulness and patience.
I’ve curated a list of all the picture books for children about how to garden and how to care for plants. And sometimes the garden is used as a metaphor – for transformation, for difference, for community, for self-reliance. There are lessons everywhere in the garden, if we stop long enough to listen.
I hope your children enjoy these moments of learning about the nature that surrounds us. But I also hope you enjoy them too, whether you have children or not. I have personally read all of these book and I’ve enjoyed them tremendously. We’re all in this together, and caring for plants is an act of defiance that unifies us all.
If you’ve written a children’s book about plants and gardening, and would like me to have a look and include it on this list (if appropriate), please feel free to email me using the Contact form on this website. I really love discovering new authors and illustrators.
I read about 100 kids books every year. Not all of them are about gardening, obviously, but some of them are. I plan on revisiting this post and adding more as I come across books about plants. If you want to get updates, please subscribe to my mailing list. I don’t spam, I promise! Or just bookmark this link to revisit later. Or pin the post on Pinterest.
Written by Sara O’Leary
Illustrated by Carmen Mok
Percy lives in the hustle and bustle of a main street in a lovely town. Until his family decides to move to a new house, away from everything he knows and loves. The move doesn’t come easy for Percy – this new place is boring, and there’s nothing to do. Or so he believes. But the moment Percy starts paying attention to his surroundings, he starts noticing things: bees kissing flowers, ants on parade, birds putting on air shows. His observations lead to a desire to document his new surroundings by collecting leaves, rocks and insects. He climbs trees, dips his fingers in the river and starts noticing how nature transforms around him. Percy discovers that you can be alone without being lonely.
What I loved most about this story is how active a role Percy plays in it: he’s not just an observer, but a collector and an explorer.
Percy’s Museum teaches kids about:
Adaptation and resilience;
Discovering what’s around us;
Taking action when we’re not happy about something;
Paying close attention and documenting our observations.
2. When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree (link to buy)
Written by Jamie L.B. Deenihan
Illustrated by Lorraine Rocha
If you were ever disappointed by a gift you received as a child, you’ll love this book. (Unless this book is the disappointing gift in question.) There are so many things on our protagonist’s birthday wishlist: a robot dog, a drone, a remote control car, some headphones. But all she gets is a lemon tree.
Here’s what you should do if you don’t like the present you received: act excited, say thank you, and wait for grandma to fall asleep before you can figure out what to do with it. Definitely don’t drop it off a bridge. And most certainly don’t play “ding dong ditch.”
Lola does none of these things. And throughout the story, she learns how to take care of her lemon tree through all the seasons and different scenarios. Picking lemons is fun, and it’s a great excuse to make lemonade. Then you can sell the lemonade and use the money to buy even more plants to share with your friends.
This book teaches kids about:
Being grateful for the presents they get;
Making the most out of less desirable situations;
Taking care of plants;
Sharing with your friends;
How to make lemonade (both literally and figuratively).
3. And Then the Seed Grew (link to buy)
Written and illustrated by Marianne Dubuc
Originally published in French under the title Le Jardin de Jaco
In a fairly ordinary garden, creatures lived year round, above and below ground. Creatures such as Yvonne, a groovy mole with a swanky sense of interior design, and the Field Mouse family, with their cute kids and polka dot couch (I may have been staring at the detailed illustrations for way too long.)
Until one morning, when a seed falls from the sky and disrupts the life of the garden residents. As soon as the seed pops out a small root, everyone is inconvenienced: it blocks the ant’s path, it pierces Yvonne’s ceiling, and it causes a forced relocation for the Mouse family. Everyone is fed up and they all agree that the only possible solution is to cut down the plant. So it’s up to little Jack to bring some sense into this tense situation and make the case for why the plant needs to stay.
This book teaches kids about:
How a plant root structure grows;
How to focus on teamwork and the greater good;
The importance of plants for natural wildlife.
How to get a knack for interior design (ok, that may just have been me.)
4. Planting a Rainbow (link to buy)
Written and illustrated by Lois Ehlert
Every year, the protagonist and their mom plant a rainbow. They buy the bulbs in the fall and plant them in the ground without forgetting to neatly mark them. They order from seed catalogs and wait for spring to warm up the soil enough to sow the seeds. In the end, the reward is magnificent: a garden full of rainbow colors: red (carnations and roses), orange (tulips and poppies), yellow (marigolds and daffodils), green, blue, purple.
This book is suitable for young kids, but Lois Ehlert’s illustrations are suitable for every age.
This book teaches kids:
The colors of the rainbow;
How to plant bulbs and seeds;
How seeds turn into fully-grown plants;
The importance of planning and having patience;
The names of a lot of flowers.
5. Butterflies Belong Here: A Story of One Idea, Thirty Kids, and a World of Butterflies (link to buy)
Written by Deborah Hopkinson
Illustrated by Meilo So
This is the story of a quiet, almost invisible, kid – the one who hides in the back in school photos, but has a deep-seeded desire to be brave enough to speak up and take charge of a cause she believes in. And in this case, the cause is saving the monarch butterfly. Just like the monarch butterfly, our protagonist migrated to a new country, where she can’t speak the language very well. Monarchs take long journeys, just like the girl’s family did. “I wondered if monarch butterflies belonged here. Sometimes I wondered if we did, too,” she says.
Each generation prepares the groundwork for the one that follows, just like the generation of butterflies that wait in the south to make their long journey North. It takes four generations for the monarchs to reach from Mexico (where they overwinter) to the North of the United States. Monarch butterflies only lay eggs on milkweed, which is quickly disappearing from the ecosystem. So our protagonist, the kid who feels that she doesn’t belong, is moved to take action to save the monarchs.
One individual can make a difference, and our narrator here does just that. She can feel that she’s growing and changing, little by little, while leading her class in creating a butterfly garden (a way station) and an entire movement in and outside of school. She even meets the mayor.
This book teaches kids about:
The power of everyday activism
The importance of community-led conservation
The life cycle of monarch butterflies and their role in the ecosystem,
The power of feeling that you belong (to a place, to a cause and to a community)
“It just takes one person to get things started.”
Includes the instructions for how to make a schoolyard monarch way station.
6. How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin (link to buy)
Written by Margaret McNamara
Illustrated by G. Brian Karas
Charlie likes going to school and he likes his teacher. But what he doesn’t like is when they have to line up by height. Because that’s when Charlie is always the last one in line.
During class, Mr Tiffin, the teacher, brings in three pumpkins: a big one, a medium one and a small one. How many seeds are there in each pumpkin? Does the largest one have the most? How can they possibly tell? The class take turns devising ways to figure out the answer to the question. Counting seeds is a messy business, and should be done in teams. In the end, the smallest pumpkin had the most seeds – you couldn’t tell this from the outside.
This book teaches kids about:
Maths (especially counting by twos, fours, tens)
Problem solving and teamwork;
And lots and lots of facts about pumpkins.
7. Lola Plants a Garden (link to buy)
Written by Anna McQuinn
Illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw
Inspired by her favorite poem, Lola wants to plant a garden. She collects books from the library, plans her garden, buys and plants seeds. But then, she has to wait for a long time for the seeds to grow. In the meantime, she passes the time by making her own flower book, crafting shiny bells, plucking weeds, and making cupcakes. Once her garden is ready to show, she’s also an excellent host to her friends. A sweet story about how Lola becomes the heroine of her own poem. It’s Lola’s garden now.
This book teaches kids:
That planting a garden takes planning, preparation and patience;
That you can be the hero of your own story;
Sharing your projects with others is fun.
Written by Helene J. Jordan
Illustrated by Loretta Krupinski
Written in 1960 and originally painted in gouache, this book is an instructional classic. A seed is a plant that hasn’t yet started to grow. There are different kinds of seeds, and all of them are shown next to the mature plant. Some seeds, such as oak seeds, grow very slowly over generations. While others, such as beans, grow very fast. The book then instructs kids, in minute detail, how to plant bean seeds (in eggshells) and watch them grow.
This book teaches kids:
How seeds germinate and turn into plants;
How to plant their own seed and record their observations.
9. What’s Inside a Flower? (link to buy)
Written and illustrated by Rachel Ignotofsky
What an absolute visual treat of a book! Every single page could be framed as a botanical poster. This book is delightful, educational and gorgeously executed. Flowers live everywhere: in cities, in jungles, on mountaintops and in swamps. In orchards, fields and fancy gardens. That also means that flowers come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors.
The book then goes on to describe all the different parts of a plant and its role for the plant and the entire ecosystem, as well as the role of water, soil and sun. It’s a gorgeous book, which also teaches kids about minerals, gases, decomposers and photosynthesis.
This book teaches kids about:
The elements of a plant (it goes into quite a lot of detail here, so it’s suitable for older kids);
How a plant is pollinated (via wind, birds and pollinators);
How flowers grow into food for people and animals;
The birds and the bees, quite literally.
10. The Earth Gives More (link to buy)
Written by Sue Fliess
Illustrated by Christiane Engel
The Earth Gives More is a beautiful little rhyme book about the wonders and miracles of nature. So while not a book about gardening per se, it will teach kids about how to connect with nature: running barefoot through the grass, breathing in clean fresh air, swimming in cold water on a hot summer day, observing the spectacle of green leaves turning red.
The book moves through the seasons to show the abundance that nature has to offer, but also the actions that we can take to give back to the Earth. Actions such as sowing plants in spring, clearing away trash, scattering leaves to enrich the soil at the end of the growing seasons and filling bird feeders in winter.
I particularly liked the following piece of advice, for kids and adults alike.
“Do your part. Use what you know.
Help the Earth to thrive and grow.”
What I enjoyed about this book is that it shows people both acting to protect nature and enjoying nature. These two ideas are always interconnected throughout the illustration and the text.
This book teaches kids about:
What happens in nature in every season;
How we can contribute to the well-being of our ecosystem;
Generosity, inclusion, enjoyment in taking care of things;
How we directly influence our surroundings.
11. How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World (link to buy)
Written and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman
This book is not about gardening directly, but about the connection (or rather disconnection) that we have to where our food comes from. What happens if you want to make apple pie, but can’t get a hold of the ingredients because the market is closed?
Oh, that’s easy! You embark on a journey around the world to source what you need.
Once you’re in Italy, you can pick your own semolina wheat. Just an armful or two is all you need for the pie. Then jump on a train to France in search of some chickens. That’s where you get the most elegant eggs from. Then off to Sri Lanka for cinnamon. Don’t forget to borrow a cup of milk from a well-mannered cow in the English countryside.
How zany is this book?! I absolutely loved reading it, and with every turn of the page I wanted to know where our little pastry chef went to next. I was really laughing out loud by the end of the book because of something involving a hen and a cow strapped to a parachute. Absolutely nutty with a pinch of cinnamon!
This book teaches kids about:
How to find creative solutions to problems
How much work even the simple things require
Where the ingredients in our food come from
Imagination, wonder, excitement, adventure
12. Mr. McGinty’s Monarchs (link to buy)
Written by Linda Vander Heyden
Illustrated by Eileen R. Ewen
Mr. M knows a thing or two about monarchs. He studies them through a magnifying glass as they sip nectar from milkweed on lazy summer afternoons. But the most important thing one can know about these pollinators is that they only lay their eggs on milkweed, and no other plant.
When all the milkweed is mowed down and the monarchs are in danger (oh humans, why do you insist on mowing everything?), Mr. M springs into action. He retrieves the larvae and puts them into jars, much to the dismay of unsympathetic passers-by. At home, he makes hatching aquariums and comes up with a creative solution to take care of the monarchs.
This book teaches kids about:
The power of one person to make a difference;
Finding creative solutions;
The power of activism to nurture the world around us.
Written by Sonia Sotomayor (yes, that Sonia Sotomayor)
Illustrated by Rafael Lopez
Sonia and her friends are planting a garden. In any given garden, there are different plants of different smells, colors, shapes and purposes. Some plants are hardy while others are fragile. Some can grow by themselves while others need a bit more help. And just like the plants in the gardens are different, so are children, although the differences are not so easy to spot, sometimes. Only by asking our friends about their experience can we understand them better.
Sonia gives herself daily insulin shots because she has diabetes. Rafael has asthma and has to take breaks often and use an inhaler. While Madison and Arturo have really sharp senses, with the exception of the sense of sight. That;s why they use a trustworthy guide dog and a cane.
All the kids work in the garden together and they’re all different. And the best way to learn about each other is to ask questions. Just as with plants, each kid has unique powers to share with the world and make it richer.
This book teaches kids about:
The differences that unite us;
How to ask questions to understand someone else’s experiences;
That we’re all beautiful in our unique way;
Seen and unseen disabilities that some kids live with (and thrive through).
14. If Bees Disappeared (link to buy)
Written and illustrated by Lily Williams
The story takes place in Kent, also known as the Garden of Eden, and a historic county in the United Kingdom. The book zooms in on the small creatures that make this lush landscape possible: the bees. And to get us acquainted with these little helpers, Lily Williams starts by showing us how different types of bees look like.
Did you know that bees are more efficient and successful at pollinating than birds, insects and even wind? You’ll also learn about honey bees and the mechanics of how a hive works as a single organism in which bees cannot survive without one another.
Unfortunately, honey bees are threatened by colony collapse disorder (CCD), a disease which causes an entire colony to die suddenly. There are a few causes of CCD, most importantly pesticide exposure and the destruction of bee habitat.
The disappearance of bees would create a chain reaction that would affect every other being on the planet. We would lose plants, animals and insects, and change the world as we know it would be changed.
If honey bees disappeared, so would most of the food on our plates. If honey bees disappeared, we would have less flavor in our meals and shorter-living crops; we would lose food such as blueberries, apples, avocados, chocolate and coffee.
If fruit disappeared, so would the birds that feed on wild fruit. If birds disappeared, there would be no natural pest control in the garden and on farms.
This unraveling effect is called a trophic cascade and it would affect things on a macro level: cities, countries, eventually all the land.
But we can do things to help protect the honey bees, such as:
Bee friendly gardening;
Not over-weeding the garden;
Building bee hotels;
Purchasing bee-friendly food;
Speaking up for the bees;
This book teaches kids about:
The importance of a small insect for our entire ecosystem;
How to connect cause and effect;
The concept of “cascade of consequences” and “chain reaction”;
Practical tips to help the bees;
Plants that are bee-friendly (lavender, hellebore, angelica, crocus, sunflower, heather, etc.) and how they look like.
15. Gwendolyn’s Pet Garden (link to buy)
Written by Anne Renauld
Illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh
Gwendolyn is adamant about her one true wish: she desperately wants a pet. She’s not picky, and she’ll take anything she can get: a two-legged cockatoo, a four-legged gerbil, a chinchilla or a lobster. Despite Gwendolyn’s grouching and pouting, pestering and pleading, bargaining and demanding, her parents are just as adamant. There will be no birds in the house, nor tarantulas, not even a shrimp.
They do have the insight to probe deeper into the girl’s desperation as to why she wants a pert Gwen wants a pet not just to keep her company, but to have something to take care of.
The impasse is broken when the parents offer her a swampy smelling box of dirt. Or at least that’s what she thinks of it, at first. In fact, it’s a bed of soil that Gwendolyn learns how to take care of. And the smell of swamp quickly starts to resemble that of possibility.
Gwendolyn goes to the library to borrow a book about plants, but to also get some seeds from the seed library. She starts digging and plants marigolds, basil, fennel, zucchini. And with a pat of encouragement, a splash of water and a whole lot of plant-savvy from G, the day comes when the soil does a trick. Two tiny leaves push up and slowly unfold and turn towards the sun. Then more and more show up, followed by the scents of fennel and basil that fill the air with a licorice perfume.
Gwendolyn keeps herself busy by naming the plants, studying them daily and recording the changes in her notebook. She finally has something to care for, even though it doesn’t have two, four or even eight legs. But it’s alive, and G can take care of it and watch it grow.
The book ends with instructions and encouragement for kids who want to start their own garden and with a thorough explanation of how a seed library works.
This book teaches kids about:
The lifecycle of plants;
How to be responsible for their care and nurturing;
Resilience: Gwendolyn didn’t get what she wanted, but she made the best of what she got;
Seed lending libraries.
What a lovely little picture book from the point of view of the dog joining its human for a day of gardening. From patiently waiting to playing with the hose to getting all muddy, the dog is a not-so-silent observer of an enjoyable day spent working in the garden.
Picture books are my escape into stories and I love everything about them – from the economy of words to the gorgeous illustrations. But what I’m mostly interested in is the storytelling.
Take, for example, Etty Darwin’s story. It’s based on real people (Charles Darwin and one of his daughters, Etty) and a real location (Down House). At the Darwin family country home, Charles had built The Sandwalk, an oval path which he would walk around when he needed to think through his theories and organize his thoughts.
In this picture book, Lauren Soloy toys with the idea of what would have happened if Charles Darwin had been accompanied by Etty. Her inquisitive mind thinks about the existence of ferries (she wants to be one) and what kind of possibilities that would open up. And we see Charles Darwin open to the idea that ferries could be real. A great book about the natural and supernatural world.
Written and illustrated by Shawn Harris.
The book starts with a gray cityscape from which our protagonist is quick to escape into a field of flowers. And thus, the frolicking begins, but also an amazing sensory journey to take in all the details of a flower. To really see what’s in front of you; to take in your surroundings and study them really up close “with your face down in a flower.” And when you’re this focused and apply yourself, your imagination starts to take the reins. Your senses are heightened. And everything that is small is also very significant.
And then, it goes deeper than that talking about the life that is inside us and all around us. I can’t quite explain it without disclosing too much of the text and the ending; but even if you don’t read this to a child, read it for yourself. The entire book is a metaphor for living with intention and paying attention to all the beauty that is both around us and within us.
The illustrations by Shawn Harris pull you into that state of happy contemplation and just don’t let go.
This book teaches kids about:
Noticing small details and attributing meaning to them;
Being mindful and focused on what’s in front of you;
But also letting your imagination roam and seeing with your mind’s eye;
The enchantment of small joy;
That life is inside you and all around you.
There are a lot of great books to teach kids about plants and gardens, and no doubt you’ll find books for every reading level. The most important part of the reading is to keep it fun and entertaining, and to stop along the way to explain the main lessons around plant care and gardening.
All the links above go to Amazon, but I highly encourage you to also check out Bookshop too and see if any of the independent bookstores in your area carry the children’s books about plants and gardening.
If you want to read more about houseplants and gardening, hop on my once-a-month newsletter list. There’s no endless email sequence here. Just a monthly email to keep in touch and chat about plants.
Featured photo by Vanessa Serpas via Unsplash
Vertical photo by Liana Mikah via Unsplash
