Wait Like a Seed

Written by Erin Alladin

Illustrated by Tara Anderson

Pajama Press 

978-1-77278-359-9

32 pp.

Ages 4–8 

March 2026  

 

Understanding life cycles, particularly of plants, can be a challenge for young children because of the extended time needed for a seed to progress through its stages. Kids may get the idea of a flower but knowing how a flower came to be and what it can produce is far more difficult. Using simple rhyming verses, bold words, and additional info pages, Erin Alladin leads young readers through the parts of a plant and how that plant can produce a new plant or hundreds.

From Wait Like a Seed, written by Erin Alladin, illustrated by Tara Anderson

The story is set up with text and a drawing of the seed or plant as it is developing opposite an illustration of the children, and occasional orange tabby, watching the plant grow. From a seed waiting for the spring rains to fall, through rooting, sprouting, and growing leaves, buds, flowers, and pods, the milkweed plant goes through its life cycle. 

Smile like a flower,

Giving and grand.

Smile like a flower

'Til the butterflies land. (pg. 14)

The children wait and watch and delight in what they get to witness over the seasons, from spring rains to winter dormancy. And because the monarch butterfly is tied to milkweed plants, children can also witness the development of eggs to larvae, to caterpillars and further. 

From Wait Like a Seed, written by Erin Alladin, illustrated by Tara Anderson

While I don't usually review paperback releases of previously published hard copy books, I never got to see Wait Like a Seed when it was released last year. And seeing this new edition, I really wanted to share Erin Alladin's latest. She has a lovely talent of telling stories, particularly those related to the natural world. (See her Outside You Notice, 2021.) By blending the life cycles of the milkweed and the monarch butterfly with the experiences of two young children, Erin Alladin gives us a personal story with which young children may be familiar. And with her rhyming text, she makes an educational book into a charming read with a tempo that balances with the pace of the plant's development.

From Wait Like a Seed, written by Erin Alladin, illustrated by Tara Anderson

But without Tara Anderson 's coloured pencil illustrations, Wait Like a Seed would not have the colour and shape to carry readers effortlessly through the milkweed's life stages. Instead of a book of non-fiction, Wait Like a Seed is the story of two playful children as they swing, pop milkweed pods, build a snowman, and play with their cat. She gives them joy and curiosity.

From Wait Like a Seed, written by Erin Alladin, illustrated by Tara Anderson

I know that teachers and parents will want to use Wait Like a Seed as a teaching tool for life cycles and the seasons, but don't forget the soft poetry that sweeps through the book. It tells its own story of imaginative and educational play, helping children to grow in their own way.

Watch It Grow: Backyard Life Cycles

Written and illustrated by Barbara Reid

North Winds Press (Scholastic Canada)

978-1-4431-7559-3

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

December 2019

This one may have been released just after Christmas but any picture book by Barbara Reid, the grande dame of plasticine art, could not be overlooked, especially one that will be a valuable teaching tool for young biologists.

From Watch It Grow: Backyard Life Cycles by Barbara Reid

For four species, Barbara Reid illustrates their complete life cycles in three double-page spreads each. There is the monarch butterfly which transforms from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis and butterfly. There is the sunflower which grows from the recognizable hard-shelled seed through germination with root and stem and two cotyledons, to leaves and finally flower and seed again.

From Watch It Grow: Backyard Life Cycles by Barbara Reid

The third species is the green frog which lays many eggs from which tadpoles hatch, and then develop into organisms with back legs and then front legs. The final species is the white oak growing from an acorn which will take root, produce a seedling which grows into a sapling and finally a mature tree. To summarize the cycles, Barbara Reid provides a one-page illustration of each at the end of her book.

From Watch It Grow: Backyard Life Cycles by Barbara Reid

This may be the content of Watch It Grow: Backyard Life Cycles and it is important content for teachers who will be helping young children investigate the relationships between different stages of the same organism.  But Watch It Grow is more than a child's picture book as teaching tool, and that's because the art is that of Barbara Reid.  Watch It Grow: Backyard Life Cycles becomes a celebration of life and the seasons, as plant and animals grow and develop through their life stages. Into each life cycle's story, Barbara Reid brings in a landscape of pond or backyard, woods or meadow, all with the textural and accurately-coloured richness of her plasticine art. Young children will be reaching out, as they always do with Barbara Reid's art, to touch the leaves or the caterpillar or a flower, certain that its softness or fuzziness or crispiness will be palpable and maybe even sonorous.

I know teachers and parents will want to have this book in their library for the teaching of life cycles, which Watch It Grow: Backyard Life Cycles will do flawlessly, but don't ignore the artistry of its illustrations. Young readers will certainly be enamoured with Barbara Reid's art and this will only cultivate further learning.