Flowers Are Pretty ... Weird!

February 15, 2022
Preschool-Grade 3 From the writer and illustrator of Butterflies Are Pretty . . . Gross! (2021) comes the second volume in the Nature's Top Secrets series. The narrator, a rather crotchety bee who promises ever-more-enticing revelations if the readers will just turn the page, encourages viewers to see flowers as "not just pretty . . . They're pretty weird." He extols blossoms, large or small, cute or spooky. The second half of the book spotlights his favorites, including western underground orchids, which are pollinated by termites; duckweed flowers, which can be smaller than grains of salt; and corpse lilies, which smell like rotten meat. As in Sara Levine's Flower Talk (2019), the rather prickly, sometimes amusing narration will capture kids' attention, and the information presented is inherently interesting. The narrator makes bee-related quips, such as, "I've seen flowers so weird, they'll make your six legs shiver. (If you're a bee, that is.)" Stylized digital illustrations reflect the tone of the text while helping viewers visualize the many flowers mentioned. An appealing picture book for certain junior naturalists.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from March 25, 2022

PreS-Gr 2-A bee shares its favorite things about flowers in a fun scrapbook format. Using wordplay ("Bee honest" and "bee-lieving") and puns galore, a bee explains how flowers are both wonderful and weird. In fact, flowers are opposites in many ways: they can be big or small, pretty or ugly, edible or poisonous. The informative words are accompanied by pretty textured illustrations, such as a smiling monkey orchid. The text is center formatted with important points enlarged, in bold, or in bold italics. Generous white space will also help emerging readers, who will especially enjoy how the bee's written asides add flavor. For example, one picture is labeled "Bee Butt LOL" and clarified with "not me." Most of the illustrations take up the full spread, with pretend snapshots framed with tape. Some of the stranger flowers in the book are highlighted at the back with more details, but this isn't a book for research. Those who enjoy the playful narrators of Paul Meisel's My Awesome Summer by P. Mantis and Bethany Barton's I'm Trying to Love Spiders will find a lot to appreciate here. VERDICT Both educational and humorous, this is highly recommended.-Elissa Cooper

Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.