One Watermelon Seed

by Celia Barker Lottridge

Here's a wonderfully innovative book for children who are just learning to count. As we watch Max and Josephine tend their garden, there are ample opportunities to count--from 1 to 10 as the garden is planted and from 10 to 100 (in tens) while the garden is being harvested. And there's more to
count than plants. Bees, ants, worms, butterflies, and other animals also adorn the pages, and children will want to count them too. Bold, colorful illustrations by Karen Patkau accompany Celia Barker Lottridge's direct text. Not only is the book good arithmetic fun, it also offers a fascinating
introduction to gardening as well.

Genres: Picture Books, Counting, Food, Childrens, Mathematics, Storytime, Gardening

24 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a counting book and the learning occurs by planting seeds in a vegetable garden and then counting the number of harvested vegetables from the plants. The planted seeds are counted from 1 to 10 and the harvested vegetables and fruits are counted by tens from 10 to 100. Illustrations are bright and colorful. However my two star rating relates to the poor garden techniques illustrated, for example the corn, planting ten corn seeds will not yield 100 ears of corn. Planting ten corn seeds in one long row will not allow for enough pollination to produce kernels on the ear. And also corn plants will never produce ten ears to a stalk, three to four would be the maximum if the corn seed was in an arrangement for maximum pollination.
Authors, illustrators, and editors need to check real facts when using concrete examples to illustrate picture books. And by the way one watermelon seed will not produce ten watermelons and two pumpkin seeds will not produce twenty pumpkins. By the way growing up on a produce farm allowed me to watch all these concepts on a number of acres.
Perhaps I should have given this a one star.

[Becky B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Max and Josephine plant a garden with a couple seeds of different varieties. From those few seeds, they harvest a whole lot of fruits and vegetables by the tens.

This book can help kids count by tens, notice how one seed can grow and produce many fruits/vegetables, and study the vivid words used to describe all the produce. There’s also a prompt to find certain creatures in the garden at the back of the book, turning it into a hide-n-seek puzzle.

[Flossmoor Public Library (IL) · Rating 3 out of 5]

We read this book in our Tuesday Tales storytime for three- to five-year-olds. This book is a counting book, but the kids at our storytime didn't participate in the counting as much as we thought. However, the illustrations were cute and the kids enjoyed the end of the book when they had to identify the food in the garden and the animals on the page.

Miss Jenny

[Miss Pippi the Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A counting and gardening book that features the planting of seeds and an abundance harvest. The seeds are planted 1-10. The crops are harvested in tens from 10-100. The books jumps to the Winter and the young growers enjoy popcorn from their harvest.

2025 storytime theme: watermelons

Reviewed from a library copy.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations. Seems appropriate for kindergarten to first grade children who still practice counting, first from one to ten, then counting by tens.

[Genevieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute little kids book

[SallySnowtiger · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Watermelon Seed

Grades (pre-K)and K-1
Non-fiction Math


Karen Patkau’s illustrations have a realistic, but cartoon like quality. The colors are bold and vivid with illustrations spanning over two pages. The first illustration introduces the reader to Max and Josephine, who planted a garden, and as the book progresses we see more detail given to the various plants in the garden. Starting from soil and seeds, the small beginnings of little green shrubs explode with color into a full garden. The text is minimal at the bottom of each page building up a counting process starting with “one watermelon seed” to “10 corn seeds.” The illustrations grow larger with the increase in number and the growth of the garden. Once the garden is full, Max and Josephine realize they have plenty to pick. Counting in 10s leading to 100, they start with “10 watermelons big and green” to “100 ears of corn,” which Max and Josephine save to make “100s and 1000s of big white crunchy puffs of popcorn.”
The text not only teaches counting from 1-10, but counting in 10s leading to 100. It teaches children where fruits and vegetables come from, but also teaches them color and size by building vocabulary in providing short descriptions of various colors and textures used to describe fruits and vegetables. “Thirty eggplants, dark and purple, and forty peppers, shiny yellow” accompany bright colorful illustrations and the numbers at the bottom of page also match the color of the fruit or vegetable to reinforce colors and numbers. Patkau also includes two pages in the end of the book illustrating the various colorful fruits and vegetables that were planted such as watermelons, pumpkins, eggplants and strawberries. The final page titled “Can you find any of these creatures in the garden?” illustrates various insects and birds seen throughout the book such the bee, ladybug, Robin and hummingbird. Children will enjoy this book because it's easy to read format and bright colorful illustrations will make learning to count fun.

Grades K-1
Math/Science
This is a great book to include in math and science lessons for children in pre-k to 1st grade. It teaches counting 1-10 and counting in 10s. There is a lot of material in this book that can be used to introduce science lessons on plant growth, insects and birds.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book to read to a group or one on one! This book has beautiful illustrations full of critters and bugs and plants and seeds! Watch as Max and his sister plant their garden. Look for that black cat in each picture. Use this book for Pre-School Story Time/Class and the children enjoyed it so much they kept interrupting with how they like blueberries and such-that's a mark of a great book when the children interact with the reader.

[Maxwoodliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does a good job of transitioning from counting 1 through 10 by 1's to 10 through 100 by 10's. I would use this book to work with very young students that are just learning how to count. The illustrations are great and help with the students counting. I could bring in different seeds for them to count on their table while I was reading the book to them. They could also sort the different seeds.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has great illustrations and uses repeated text for beginning readers. Throughout the book the Max and Josephine plant and count all the way to ten. Great book for kindergarten and those learning to count using 10's, up to 100 ,and 100 to 1000.

[Allison Burke]

This is a fun book for young readers to be engaged in. The book teaches about counting items in a garden. The last page of the book provides several words of items in the illustrations in which the reader can go back and search. I would use this book for counting and adding.

[Patty Schuster · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will help young chidlren learn how to grow a garden, count to a hundred and learn what is inside of many different vegetables. i loved this book! This would be a great book to use in the classroom.

[Edna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun counting book by ones and tens using a vegetable and fruit garden tended by a young boy and girl.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts out introducing counting to ten then has kids count by ten to one hundred.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun counting concept picture book. Kids can count the seeds as their planted and the fruit as its picked. I think it will work well as a read aloud.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used this for a kindergarten math lesson plan. worked out well and the kids enjoyed it. will look to use it again

[Beyond the Pages with Eva K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent tool

[Julie]

One Watermelon Seed by Celia Barker Lottridge (2008)

[Jaclyn Giuriceo · Rating 5 out of 5]

very cute book for kids!