How a Plant Grows

by Bobbie Kalman

How a Plant Grows gives children a simple, entertaining introduction to the lives of plants from their beginnings as seeds, through their growth, to reproduction and death. Detailed illustrations accompany simple plant experiments. Other topics • the parts of a plant and its lifecycle• how plants make their own food• why leaves change color in fall

Genres: Nonfiction

32 pages, Library Binding

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Bobbie Kalman (1947 - ) is the award-winning Canadian author of more than 400 non-fiction books.

She established herself as a leading author in children’s non-fiction in the 1980’s and 90’s with two acclaimed series about pioneer life, The Early Settler Life Series (15 titles) and The Historic Communities Series (31 titles), both published by Crabtree Publishing.
She has created many of Crabtree’s most popular series, which also include The Native Nations of North America Series (19 titles), The Lands, Peoples, and Cultures Series (93 titles), and The Science of Living Things Series (32 titles), among others.

Born in Hungary in 1947, Bobbie and her family escaped to Austria during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. The family spent several weeks there as refugees before immigrating to North America. A former teacher, Bobbie Kalman taught at both the elementary and secondary levels. She also spent several years working as an educational consultant for several publishing companies. Bobbie holds degrees in English, Psychology, and Education. She is married and has four children and three grandchildren.

Although best known for her non-fiction, Bobbie’s newest book is autobiographical. Released in September, 2006, Refugee Child is the account of Bobbie and her family’s escape from Hungary when she was just nine years old. Written to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution in October of 2006, the book is told from the perspective of a young girl.

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT. Detailed enough that this could be a valuable resource for a student working on a research project, but accessible enough that everything makes sense. :) Just the right number of interesting facts (seeds can wait for hundreds of years before they germinate; needles on cacti are actually their leaves, etc) without being overwhelming.

The illustrations are a bit hit or miss, but the photos are just fine. I particularly love the picture of a baby duck with some burrs stuck on it and one shot of a plant's pollen being blown away by the wind. Most pictures of wind-pollenated plants are of dandelions, so it was a refreshing change.

This is also the ONLY picture book I've read that explains the direct connection between sun's energy --> plant --> energy for critters who eat plants / critters who eat other plant-eating critters.

Reread for 2013 Plant Unit.

[Sarah Wurster]

This is a great informative book about how plants grow as well as an abundance of other information about plants. How a Plant Grows has all of the classic elements of a non-fiction text: table of contents, lots of photographs with captions, diagrams, vocabulary words, and an index. This book has about 15 boldfaced vocabulary words that can be found in the glossary at the end of the book. My favorite part of the book is the end where several activities can be found that you can do including building a simple terrarium. Due to the length of this book, I would recommend using parts of it that you many need to focus on for use in a classroom.

[Colleen]

Bloom and Grow - unit 2
Nonfiction

[CFAITC]

Through nonfiction text and colorful photographs, learn how plants grow, and then try a couple of experiments that are listed.