“What Do the Plants Say?” by Lois Wickstrom

• 07/24/2020
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WHAT DO THE PLANTS SAY?
Lois Wickstrom
Look Under Rocks (2020)
ISBN: 9780916176617
Reviewed by Lydia Dehning (age 6) for Reader Views Kids (07/2020)

“What Do the Plants Say?” by Lois Wickstrom is a funny book about a little girl who invents something so that she can understand her flowers when she thinks they’re talking to her. The little girl has some balloon flowers that “pop” when they open up. She makes a Plant Translator to understand her flowers by turning buttons. She has to work at figuring out the right way to make the plants be understood. When she figures it out, then she can know what they are saying to her and be able to answer them back. The girl then decides that a gas called helium is needed to make the flowers get bigger to be heard. She has to try different ways of using the gas so that the flowers will stay alive and not pop too soon. She then figures out a way to make the balloon flowers float into the air, and she has a fun time with them.

I would have a fun time being the girl in this book because I would like being able to talk to flowers and play with them, too. I like looking at the pictures in the story because they are colorful and show what is happening in the story. I think kids of any age will like reading this book because the story is funny and fun to think about.

Note from Mom: I agree with everything Lydia said – it is an overall fun book to read. I like the STEM aspect to it – by using Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math in her solutions to her problems, the author is showing kids through this fictional character how to effectively problem-solve. I was not familiar with a storyline like this one, so it was refreshing to read something new for both my child and myself. I agree that kids of any age will enjoy this story and learn much from it, too.