Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
READ TO ME
TITLE: Growing Season by Maryann Cocca-Leffler (Sterling Children’s Books, April) 40 pages, $16.95
STARRING: Itty bitty Jo and El, who are the shortest girls in their little-kid class. Their wee desks, their twin elf costumes, their shared reading chair — so sweet. But in spring, Jo grows and
El doesn’t.
Slightly bigger Jo joins in the cheerfully clueless crush of pupils who crowd out El while grabbing flower pots to take home for summer. Jo gets blooming zinnias. All that’s left for El is foliage.
Mr. Diaz, teacher, comforts El that aster means “star,” and hers will have purple flowers.
Jo’s off to camp. But first she gives El her zinnias to plant beside the asters, like best-friend plants. Awww. When Jo returns — you guessed it — El is her size. No more sadness! Like her plant, the aster, El has bloomed.
The book closes with a brief and yet wordy explainer on plant life cycles and a few random-flower facts. I skip all such last pages, and besides: A child who learns the difference between perennials and annuals could make that next step to realizing Jo’s zinnias are doomed. “Will Jo die, too, Grandma?”
Nothing wrong with that conversation, but this book isn’t the text for it.