The Flower by John Light

Author: John Light

Illustrator: Lisa Evans

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Awards: None

Grade(s): Pre-K - 1st

Summary: This book is about a man named Brigg who lived in a tiny room in a big city. He worked in a library that housed books that were not supposed to be read. One day, Brigg was looking through the books that were off limits and came across a book with a flower on the cover. He snuck it out of the library and took it home to read. He realized that it was not supposed to be read because it described all different kinds of flowers, something unknown to the city he lived in. Brigg went on a search to try to find a flower in the city. He came across a junk shop that had a picture of a flower in the window. After he bought it and took it home, he saw that there was a small packet of seeds on the back of the picture. When he followed the directions, he was able to grow a beautiful plant that finally flowered. Then one day, the city's room cleaning system sucked the flower away while Brigg was at work. He was so upset, but became determined to find another flower picture containing a packet of seeds. On his search, he came to the edge of the city where the dust piles were. On top of one of the dust piles, he saw his flowering plant. When he thought it was dead, he noticed it had grown more. He sat and wondered how many flowers it would take to fill up the city. The book ends with Brigg sitting in his window with several flowering plants in flower pots lining his windowsill. 

My Thoughts: This was one of my lesser favorite books and I don't really see myself using it in my classroom. I wouldn't mind having it in my classroom library for my students to read, but I don't really see any use for it in any type of lesson. I had thought of the possibility of using it to create a writing prompt for older students to think of something that we may take for granted and write about how and why they think we take it for granted. However, the vocabulary and writing style of this book is for younger children, so I am not sure how I would incorporate it into any other lesson.