A Flower is a Friend

Written by Frieda Wishinsky

Illustrated by Karen Patkau

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-280-6

36 pp.

Ages 3-6

May 2023

Many will be enjoying their gardens this summer whether through their labours or just sitting in the glory that is a collection of blooms and greenery. But Frieda Wishinsky makes us look a little more closely into her garden to see the flowers and their friends.

From A Flower is a Friend, written by Frieda Wishinsky, illus. by Karen Patkau

Page after page of glorious digital art by Karen Patkau brings us up close to the rose and zinnia, cornflower, magnolia, and irises to see the blooms in their bold colours and their dazzling forms. But it's the association with their flower friends that needs to be seen. With each blossom is an insect or a bird, mammal or reptile, or something else, that interacts with the flower.

From A Flower is a Friend, written by Frieda Wishinsky, illus. by Karen Patkau

Frieda Wishinsky and Karen Patkau reveal a variety of mutualistic relationships, with Frieda Wishinsky giving us the ideas and spirit and Karen Patkau giving us the colour and form. There is the periwinkle-hued morning glory with its visiting dragonfly, the mouse in a tulip, and a bat calling upon the crocuses. And in her dual text, one that stipulates what the flowers do and a subtext that has young readers ponder the relationships, Frieda Wishinsky invites children to look more closely and consider how pollination happens, how a flower can draw animals to it, and how both plant and animal can benefit each other.

Spread our perfume.

 

How could a spider 

help the Queen of the Night flower?

 

From A Flower is a Friend, written by Frieda Wishinsky, illus. by Karen Patkau

A Flower is a Friend will be a lovely book for teaching STEM with regards to the growth and changes in plants and the interrelationships of living things. Even though the story is appended with notes on each animal and its role related to the plants, it's the inquiry lessons about these interactions that will fuel discussions and learning.

Coupled with Karen Patkau's illustrations, A Flower is a Friend transforms from creative non-fiction to gorgeous coffee table book that any reader would love to peruse. Her art is created of shapes so curvaceous and colours so vibrant that the garden could be a surreal landscape of the imagination. But Karen Patkau is such a pro at digital illustration that her flowers could almost be photographs. (Her art of the roses almost fooled me into thinking it was a photo.)

 

We know friendships go both ways, and these flowers and their friends demonstrate that they do, helping each other to the benefit of both. There is science behind it, but A Flower is a Friend shows us that there is also great beauty with that science.