The Day The Plants Fought Back product reviews

The Day the Plants Fought Back is a delightful book about two rowdy rascals that get their comeuppance when the garden comes alive and fights back. The illustrations by Richard Holt are wonderful and really bring the story to life. The text is easy to read with certain words displayed in a larger font for emphasis. My two daughters both thoroughly enjoyed reading The Day the Plants Fought Back , although my 11 year old raced through it in five minutes. My 8 year old loves rhyming text and thought this was a fun book to read. Her favourite part was when all the vegetables came to life and started throwing fruit at Patrick's bottom!

I took this in to a class of 8 year old's and read the book aloud to them when we had some mat time. The children were entranced by the book and were laughing and giggling when the army of corn came to life to sort out the boys. The girls in particular liked the fact that the story was about two naughty boys (because apparently girls aren't naughty!) The language used is rich with descriptive words such as twisted, wriggled and squirmed and is great for descriptive writing lessons.

Belinda O'Keefe has created a masterpiece that I think all children would enjoy reading or having it read to them. If you have a child that loves gardening or being outside, then this book is a must and it would make a wonderful gift and keepsake.

If I know anything about kids its that they are most definitely rowdy and quite often get up to mischief. My children are a great example of that and if they are not getting into trouble themselves they are always entertained by other people getting up to mischief. At 7 he loved this book and found the rowdy mischevious boys hillarious with their antics in the garden, throwing vegetables and making a big mess, he could tell they were being very naughty and that they might get in trouble.

This book is different though because the boys don't get in trouble with their parents, they get in trouble with the plants themselves, because corn has ears and potatoes have eyes and they most certainly do fight back. This was a very novel way of teaching the boys a lesson for the damage they have done in the garden and the mess they've made when the plants seemingly come to life and attack. The illustrations show the plants taking on human likenesses with eyes, ears, folded arms as they march and being able to talk. With their angry faces showing on their plant faces as they teach the boys a lesson in caring for the garden.

I did personally feel this would of been a great opening for pages on caring for plants and why they are important but this book itself didn't go into that more just an attack to scare the boys into doing the garden for fear the plants might attack again. In saying that it would be a great book to read with young children to start discussions around conservation, gardening and caring for nature. My 3 year old niece was with us when we read the story and she was quite curious about plants being able to talk and move and I noticed her quite cautiously stepping around a flower in the garden saying sorry to it as she nearly brushed against it with her foot.