Award winning author and illustrator Tania McCartney brings us an in-depth exploration of Australia’s most interesting plants in this fantastic non-fiction book.
From exploding gumnuts to the most painful plant on earth, this book is filled to the brim with intriguing and curious facts about plants in Australia.
Start your journey by getting familiar with Australia’s landscapes, including forests, coast, mountains, ocean, rivers and lakes, and desert. Then learn about the different parts of a plant before jumping into plant families and categories.
Start your journey by getting familiar with Australia’s landscapes, including forests, coast, mountains, ocean, rivers and lakes, and desert. Then learn about the different parts of a plant before jumping into plant families and categories.
Reading this book is a bit like falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. You’ll start with flora you’d expect to feature, like eucalypts and acacia. But keep exploring and you'll get to sci-fi-like plants (like inside-out flowers), deadly plants (like death cap mushrooms) and some truly bizarre and curious plants (including a range of different carnivorous beasties).
You’ll also find sections on bush food, floral emblems and wildflower meanings. I learnt that my flower is the wax flower, which means love, success, wealth and patience.
Protecting our native flora is discussed, with lots of tips included for practical things you can do to help. A contents, glossary and index round things out to make navigating this book a breeze.
Flora will immerse you in Australian plant life, and its thoughtfully designed layout gives you the freedom to read from cover to cover AND to dip in and out of the topics that interest you.
Each spread has been carefully created with stunning illustrations, helpful headings and information boxes, making it easy to move through the pages and really take in the amazing facts. Dotted lines from pics to text also help you connect the information together.
My 11-year-old daughter said, “I liked how the book is set up with extra facts in circles and lots of diagrams. They helped me understand. And I loved the colourful and detailed illustrations.”
The detail is exquisite and lingering on the illustrations is a must. The more you look, the more you see. Just beautiful!
Flora will immerse you in Australian plant life, and its thoughtfully designed layout gives you the freedom to read from cover to cover AND to dip in and out of the topics that interest you.
Each spread has been carefully created with stunning illustrations, helpful headings and information boxes, making it easy to move through the pages and really take in the amazing facts. Dotted lines from pics to text also help you connect the information together.
My 11-year-old daughter said, “I liked how the book is set up with extra facts in circles and lots of diagrams. They helped me understand. And I loved the colourful and detailed illustrations.”
The detail is exquisite and lingering on the illustrations is a must. The more you look, the more you see. Just beautiful!
Australia truly is a land of unique and fascinating flora, and this book is the guidebook to learning more, feeding curiosity and inspiring backyard exploration.
And don’t forget, it’s also a companion book to Fauna: Australia’s Most Curious Creatures. So once you’ve learnt about Australia’s plant life, get up to speed on our great animals too!
Title: Flora: Australia's Most Curious Plants
Author/Illustrator: Tania McCartney
Publisher: National Library of Australia, $29.99
Publication Date: 1 October 2024
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781922507716
For ages: 5+
Type: Non-Fiction