STARTING WITH NATURE: PLANT BOOK

Meet a plant: What are its parts? What do plants need to grow? How do they make seeds? Survive the winter? Protect themselves? Spread? These and a dozen other questions are briefly answered in this handsome, inexpensive title by the author of Animals in Motion (see review above) and other science titles. Each topic is treated in a double page spread, extensively illustrated with full-color paintings. Drawings are done with such accuracy and attention to detail that the reader can identify particular plants even without the captions. Boys and girls are shown starting a winter garden indoors, growing onions, carrots and potatoes. Other pages show children sprouting corn and bean seeds in a jar, pollinating a lily, identifying winter weeds, and creating a wild life garden. Endangered plants, different habitats in the United States, and poisonous plants are also introduced. The title includes a list of state flowers and a map of growing zones, though the latter is hard to read because the map indicates different zones by color, but does not tell the dates for the growing seasons or label the states. Also new to the Starting With Nature Series is Bird Book. (Index) (Nonfiction. 812)