A few years ago, we received A Handful of Sunshine
by Melanie Eclare for my daughter’s birthday. This delightful gardening book follows the life of a gigantic sunflower grown by Tilda. Real photographs of Tilda’s sunflower growing experience accompany the text of A Handful of Sunshine. I particularly like Tilda’s sense of style with her rubber boots and striped sweater, as she digs and plants in the garden. She climbs a ladder to reach her sunflower head and discovers a toad in the garden. In the end, she saves the seeds from the sunflower she grew to plant next season. The end page of the book shows a simple time line in the life cycle of a sunflower. Planting sunflowers after reading A Handful of Sunshineis a natural extension to this great gardening book for children.
Thank you for this article…I’m checking them out of the library today! Any ideas on good books about raising farm animals?
All of the titles I know are fictional for farm animals, although Gail Gibbons writes very informative non-fictions works, such as Milk Cow. In my opinion, her books have too much information in them; however, this is ok if you don’t read it all in one sitting. Her books are best explored, following the child’s lead.