The Stuff that Stuff Is Made Of: The Things We Make With Plants

by Jonathan Drori, Jiatong Liu (illustrator), Raxenne Maniquiz (illustrator)

Jonathan Drori brings life to the science of 30 plants, revealing how their worlds are entwined with our own in this one-of-a-kind family book.

Did you know that there's seaweed in ice cream, cork in spacecraft and dandelion in truck tyres? Have you wondered how paper or thread are made, or why the mandrake is so mysterious?
Meticulously researched and beautifully illustrated, this book of wonder gives a young reader the knowledge of how the things we use every day are born from natural materials, and the surprising stories behind their creation.

Discover
-Dandelions can turn into tires
-Papyrus is pressed into paper
-Cacao becomes chocolate
-Baobab trees transform into rope
-Cotton is spun into banknotes
-Bamboo helps people as well as pandas
-And much more!

With 30 beautifully crafted stories throughout history and from all around the world, this book entwines plant science with human history and technology and is a beautiful botanical gift to explore and treasure for readers 7-70 years.

64 pages, Hardcover

Published September 30, 2025

About the author

Jonathan Drori is a Trustee of The Eden Project,
an Ambassador for the WWF and was for nine
years a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew and The Woodland Trust. He is a Fellow of
the Linnean Society and the Zoological Society
of London, and a Member of the Institution
of Engineering and Technology. He is a former
Head of Commissioning for BBC Online and
Executive Producer of more than fifty primetime
BBC TV series on science and technology.
In 2006 he was awarded a CBE.