It's autumn in Painter's Mill, and fourteen year old Katie Burkholder has been tasked with picking apples in Zimmerman’s Orchard with her brother. It’s just another day filled with chores—until her best friend Mattie arrives to help. Somehow, boredom transforms into fun and games whenever the girls are together. The innocent fun comes to an end when Billy Marquardt and his gang of friends interrupts. Katie is no prude, but she knows better than to associate with the older English boys, especially since they’re known troublemakers. Mattie has no such compunction. Thumbing her nose at the Ordnung and all of the Amish rules, she disappears into the old barn with Billy.
While stopping to admire some of the world’s most amazing trees, the Cat and Co. teach beginning readers how to identify different species from the shape of their crowns, leaves, lobes, seeds, bark, and fruit. Kids will learn about many trees common to North America.
With the able assistance of Thing 1 and Thing 2 -- and a fleet of Rube Goldbergian vehicles -- the Cat in the Hat examines the various parts of plants, seeds, and flowers; basic photosynthesis and pollination; and seed dispersal.
Annual Plant Reviews: Flowering and its Manipulation Vol. 20
The flowering plants now dominate the terrestrial ecosystems of the planet, and there are good reasons for supposing that the flower itself has been a major contributing factor to the spread of the Angiosperms. The flowers of higher plants not only contain the organs of plant reproduction but are of fundamental importance in giving rise to fruits and seeds which constitute a major component of the human diet.
