Plant Biology for Young Children

My Life as a Plant is an activity book targeted toward young children from pre-K through second grade, created with support from the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). As stated on the back cover, its purpose is “to include even the youngest learners in the society’s vision to help all people see the importance, relevance, and beauty of plants in our daily lives.” While enjoyable, the book is also rich with age-appropriate information on plant biology topics such as anatomy, physiology, ecology, and evolution. The pithiness of the content was guided by the ASPB’s “12 Principles of Plant Biology,” which the ASPB promotes for the teaching of plant biology at K–12 levels (see http://my.aspb.org/?page=EF_Principles). Each page has an icon that corresponds to one of the 12 principles of plant biology listed at the end of the book. My Life as a Plant succeeds in introducing children to plant biology in a fun, inquiry-based, and appropriately challenging way. It engages children through coloring, connect-thedots challenges, simple experiments, recipes, puzzles, matching games, and other activities that tell the story of Sally Sunflower. Kids get to know Sally through comparisons with themselves, a clever and effective learning device that repeats throughout the book. For example, on one page, Sally says to a child, “I need food to grow just like YOU,” and then on the adjoining page, she says, “But I use energy from the sun to make food with air (CO2) and water (H2O).” A sim-