Additional information
by Donna Jo Napoli (Author), Robert Furrow (Author), Melissa Bailey (Illustrator)
Gold Winner of the Green Earth Book Award (Picture Book Primary) by the Nature Generation
Teacher Favorites: Teacher Read. Teacher Chosen. (K-2nd Grade) by the Children's Book Council
5-star Gold Winner from Reader Views Reviews (Children's Fiction Picture Book)
Featured in Publisher's Weekly
Featured in Children's Book Council Summer Showcase: These are the People in my Neighborhood
How does a handful of seeds turn into a garden?
With lyrical language and blooming illustrations, this spring picture book from Science, Naturally! reveals the transformative power of simple actions. By cleaning up an empty lot and planting fifty sunflower seeds, Mara begins to grow a flourishing, wild garden, but she doesn't do it alone. Flying insects, digging worms, hungry birds, noisy neighbors, and other secret gardeners are all quietly at work: rainstorms wash seeds away, rabbits leave new ones behind, and some helpers nibble weeds while others fertilize the soil. Each time Mara visits, expecting her sunflowers, she uncovers another secret. A nature book for kids and a garden book for young readers, Mara Plants a Seed sparks curiosity about how seeds grow, nature's cycles, and caring for our planet. It's an outdoor book for kids that connects learning with the world around them. Written by acclaimed authors Donna Jo Napoli and Robert Furrow, with illustrations by Melissa Bailey.
- Community Connection: A garden and nature book for kids, great for Earth Day and year-round, showing how growing together builds stronger bonds.
- Hands-On Nature Learning: Part science books for kids, part gardening for kids, this seed book explores how plants grow and the wonder of nature's cycles.
- Award-Winning Earth Day Pick: Winner of the 2026 Green Earth Book Award (Picture Book Primary), valued by educators for blending environmental themes with character growth.
- Educator Recommended: An ideal first plant book for kids, praised by early-childhood experts for making big ideas accessible and sparking outdoor exploration.
- Celebrated Creators: Written and illustrated by acclaimed children's book artists who bring the natural world vividly to life.
Author Biography
Robert Furrow is a gardener, a wildlife educator, and a birder. He is also a professor of teaching at the University of California, Davis, where he lives with his wife and daughters and dog. He teaches many shades of introductory biology, including wildlife natural history and how to garden for wildlife habitat. This is his sixth book co-authored with his mother Donna Jo Napoli.
Donna Jo Napoli has published books for preschoolers through high schoolers. She is a gardener, a dancer, and a dual citizen of Italy and America. She is also a linguist who works on sign languages, advocates for the language rights of deaf children, and co-directs the website RISE, which offers bimodal-bilingual video books for free. She lives with her husband outside Philadelphia.
Melissa Bailey is the daughter of an avid gardener and granddaughter of a farmer. However, though she has her own jungle of potted plants in her studio, her green thumb usually is the result of sticking it in paint rather than inherited horticultural skill.
Melissa is the author-illustrator of two picture books and has illustrated over 50 children's books. In 2019, she won the Moonbeam Awards silver medal for Best Illustrator (Steve the Dung Beetle: On a Roll, Pygmy Giraffe Publishing). Melissa loves living in rural Michigan somewhere between Flint and Detroit, thinks it would be awesome to live in a treehouse, and tries to remember to water her plants.
