The World’s Best Class Plant
by Liz Garton Scanlon and Audrey Vernick; illus. by Lynnor Bontigao
Primary    Putnam    40 pp.
5/23    9780525516354    $18.99
e-book ed.  9780525516361    $10.99

Arlo is unimpressed by his class’s “mostly green, hardly growing, never moving plant,” especially because various other rooms in his school have a cockatiel, a chinchilla, and a bearded dragon. The plant is so boring that sometimes the class forgets it’s there—that is, until they name it Jerry. (Everybody, after all, “likes feeling special.”) Now that “the blob” has a name, the class is fired up: they give the plant more love, and it blossoms, even creating spiderettes (or “little baby Jerrys”). Soon the class plans—and the entire school celebrates—Jerry Appreciation Day. Scanlon and Vernick bring humor and an ear for the dialogue of elementary-school classrooms to this lively text. The teacher’s name, for instance, morphs throughout the book from “Mr. Boring” to “Mr. Bummer” to “Mr. Patient,” each followed by “(not his real name).” Eventually, he’s “Mr. Perfect (should be his real name).” Bontigao brings a diverse group of students to these pages and captures bustling elementary classrooms with details and precision. Jerry Appreciation Day, an outdoor day of fun, is especially festive. Plant-care tips are appended.

From the July/August 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.