Pearl's First Prize Plant. This item is unavailable.Pearl's First Prize Plant

A young girl plants a seed, watches it grow, and takes the flowering plant to the county fair

PreSchool-Grade 2. Adorable, bespectacled Pearl plants a seed in the spring, which grows throughout the months in time for the county fair. With her pet pig in tow, she arrives at the big event, feeling sure that her plant could win first prize. However, when she sees a rainbow assortment of blooms, she loses faith in her entry with its tiny white flower; but then Pearl looks with new eyes at her special plant and takes it away from all the hothouse beauties. She carries it home, plants it by a shady green tree, and gives it her very own first-prize ribbon. Appealing paintings show seasonal changes in a colorful rural landscape. Children will love the bright hues. The plot is clear and concise and the text is to the point. A good selection for budding gardeners.?Kathy Mitchell, Gadsden Co. Public Library, Quincy, FL
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In fewer than 200 words, Delaney (The Gunnywolf, 1992, not reviewed, etc.) constructs a small, endearing drama around the idea that biggest isn't always best. Pearl, a bespectacled, straggly-haired farm girl, raises a tiny plant in a pot. When its single white flower opens, Pearl marches off to the county fair to enter it in the flower show. After one look at the dozens of spectacular entries in the show tent, Pearl turns on her heel, nose in air, and marches back home to plant her beloved flower under her favorite tree, where she awards it a prize ribbon that she made herself. The plot is ever so slight, but there's a lot going on in the pictures: Pearl's activities as a comically devoted horticulturalist; fields plowed, planted, maturing, and harvested; robins nesting and raising their young; the tents and amusement rides of the county fair constructed and dismantled in the background. The last spreads show hay being baled, the spring lambs grown fat and fluffy, the robins fledged, monarchs migrating, Pearl's plant with two flowers, and her pig with a boyfriend. This is a great book to have on hand for young gardeners who may not achieve results that match the pictures on the seed packets. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.