April Showers, Spring Flowers

Helped by her father, a young girl prepares a flower garden as a birthday surprise for her mother.

A simple description of a flowering plant's life cycle through the seasons. Dazzlingly colorful collage illustrations and a simple but dramatic text tell the fascinating story of the life cycle of a flower in terms of the adventures of a tiny seed. Carried aloft by the autumn wind, the tiny seed, along with other bigger seeds, travels far over the world. the journey is perilous: one of the bigger seeds is burned by the sun another falls into the ocean...

"Children, animals, and natural life react to a coming rainstorm that will nourish them all"--

Sent outside by their mother on a rainy day, a child is dismayed when their handheld game falls into the pond before they encounter giant snails, wet mushrooms, and other elements that awaken them to the sensory aspects of nature.

Animals and children alike watch as the world transforms from the dark and dead of winter to a full and blooming spring. Illustrates melting snow, greening grass, hatching birds, growing seeds, and falling rain.

"A class takes a springtime field trip to a farm to see chicks hatch and discover many opposite things in their surroundings"--

A little girl feeds a tiny caterpillar and watches him grow into a butterfly.

"In a cyclical story, a child wishes to fly like a butterfly, who wishes for privacy like a stick insect’s, who wishes to swim like a whirligig beetle. Each garden creature expresses a desire to be like someone else, ending with the dragonfly who wishes to be like a child who can run, jump, laugh, play, count, build, and more."--