Amazing Plants of the World

Selected as one of the Best Children's Books of the Year 2023 by the Bank Street College of Education Center for Children's Literature

"Amazing Plants of the World by Stepanka Sekaninova is a beautiful and interesting introduction to rare plants. I love gardening and this book offered me the opportunity to get my child interested in plants, too. The artwork is so bold and colorful, which really helped keep my little one (and me!) engaged. It was an interesting and informative book that we could both learn from, and it was just as enjoyable for adults as for the kids. Would definitely recommend it to other parents!" —Amanda A, Reviewer

"Narrated by an enthusiastic, quirky gardener, read about weird plants that stink, look peculiar, eat meat, mimic other things, and many more such oddities. The illustrations are accompanied by a lively description that gives pertinent facts while engaging readers with the gardener’s strong voice." —Imagination Soup Blog

"Other than that one flower, it was wonderfully interesting to learn about all the weird plants in the world! There are some really amazing plants in this book, and many times I thought to myself, “Oh my goodness! THAT can’t be real. That has to be fake.” Some of them look like they belong on an alien landscape! But no, they are all REAL plants on our own dear planet Earth. Fascinating!" —Luminous Libro

"First I must say we haven’t finished but both my kids have adored learning all about exotic plants and the illustrations are super cute. We will continue learning about a few plants a night until we are done. Very entertaining." —Julia H, Reviewer

"This book has pretty illustrations. I would recommend this book for young patrons who are interested in plants and gardening. The sections like carnivorous plants and smelly plants will be amusing to kids learning about these things for the first time. This would also be a nice addition to a school library." —Amanda B, Librarian

"I love old Victorian botany books with the journal sketches of flowers in them, and this feels like a modern day version of one of those! It has a fun and upbeat narration to guide the reader through the garden which is informative but spunky and entertaining enough to keep kids interested. The illustrations of the plants are great and a good mix of realistic and fantastical. Really enjoyable!" —NetGalley-Reviewer

"This bold and beautiful picture book tells the story of 41 amazing plants and their very unusual special qualities. Each page shows an interesting picture and gives about 1-2 paragraphs of informational text about a plant that most people might not have heard of. With a circus or "museum of wonders" type theme the title fonts and slightly creepy pictures will keep kids engaged and interested. As a grade 3 teacher I could absolutely see having this book in my classroom. I teach about plants in science and one of the themes that we explore are unusual plants with unique adaptations, and this book would totally fit into that unit. Beyond that, I think this book would be interesting for kids in the same way that ripley's believe it or not type books keep them coming back for more. I think this book would work well in grade 3-8 classrooms or school libraries." —Angie k, Educator

"I found the illustrations of this book amazing....and the tone of the book was very unusual.  There was a way for children to learn about plants that was both serious and fun." —NetGalley-Reviewer

"Amazing Plants of the World is a fun and creatively illustrated book about some particularly plants. I think this book will catch and hold the attention of readers. The text is informative, but also a great deal of fun. I think the use of humor, high energy, and just plan fun text and illustrations work together very well to capture and hold the attention of young readers. There was a great deal of interesting information, and the quality of the artwork was absolutely wonderful. I think event he youngest readers will enjoy looking through this book for the artwork alone. I like that there is an index included in the book. The only think I would have liked to see that was missing, would be some actual photographs of the plants. No matter how fabulous those illustrations are, I would still like to see the real thing- perhaps in the endpages with resources to learn more about the plants covered." —SSTWriting Blog