WEEDS FIND A WAY
Words by Cindy Jenson Elliott
Pictures by Carolyn Fisher
Beach Lane Books / Simon & Schuster
Weeds are wonderful! Persistent, exuberant...these plants have personalities, and this nonfiction picture book puts them on colorful display!
From bright yellow dandelions popping through cracks in sidewalks to purple loosestrife growing rampant along roadways, weeds offer unexpectd splashes of color and life to the least likely of places. With lovely language and a sly sense of humor, this beautiful picture book celebrates the tenacious temperaments of these pesky plants and is sure to have little ones chanting, "Way to go, weeds!"
RECOGNITION
An American Library Association Notable book for 2015
A Bank Street College of Education Best Book of 2015
An NCTE Notable Book in the Children's Language Arts
3x3 Illustration Competition
Society of Illustrators Los Angeles 53rd Competition: Gold Award
and Patrick Nagel Award for Excellence
California Reading Association Eureka Honor Award
STUDY GUIDE
Click here for a free pdf of the Weeds curriculum guide.
PRAISE
"Good or bad, weeds offer endless opportunities
to study one of nature's most wonderful tools: adaptation," writes Jenson-Elliott...The many intriguing details will leave readers with the understanding that these plants are fighters."
--Publisher's Weekly
"Instead of lamenting their pesky invasiveness, Jenson-Elliott celebrates weeds for their heartiness and ability to disseminate and adapt...the bold colors of the mixed media/digital collage illustrations do an admirable job of making the ordinary become stunning. More detailed information about how weeds can actually be useful despite their reputation can be found in the back matter, along with a list both identifying and offering further facts about the plants pictured in the book.... Expect to have readers rooting and exploring for the ubiquitous plants."
--School Library Journal
"With a text that celebrates their perseverance, endnotes that describe their uses and illustrations that commemorate their beauty, this book invites young readers to re-examine their view of weeds. . . . Elegant language and incidental rhymes make these pages as fun to read aloud as they are to pore over. . . This fact-filled picture book that reads like poetry may well cause young readers to rethink the idea of unwanted guests in the garden."
--Shelf Awareness
"The language is lovely here, as seeds shoot, swirl, and poke, finding "a way to live where other plants can't grow." A little girl and her dog anchor the picture book, moving through beautiful natural landscapes…. An eye-opening look at what folks generally consider to be a nuisance."
--Booklist Online
