Plantzilla, written by Jerdine Nolen is a story about a boy named Mortimer who loves his class plant Plantzilla. One summer he gets to take the plant home. In this book, the reader joins Mortimer and Plantzilla on a wild adventure. This book teaches children about plants and fun facts about them. ( )

This book incorporates a couple different subjects. The reader is reading different dialogues, they are reading how people write letters differently, and they are learning about science. The science topic is plants. While the book is fiction and exaggerates the actions of the plant, some of the information is factual. This book shows students they can get excited with plants and shows how men students can take on the responsibility of taking care of plants by themselves. The illustrations are whimsical and bring the words and story to life. ( )

I'll admit that the premise is a bit absurd, but the story is fun and all done in letter-form which can be equally interesting. The illustrations really carried the book for me. I enjoyed the extra content that examining each page offered. In addition to the text, there was a entire sub-plot on every page. David Catrow always does great work like that. This was a very funny, enjoyable story. ( )

Genre: Science Fiction

Review: This book is so funny! I laughed out loud to it. It is Science Fiction because it talks about a boy who takes home the class plant for the summer and does everything the teacher tells him to do about taking care of it; watering, sunshine, "combing" the soil, etc. (Science portion). It is fiction because the plant grows so much and takes over the house, and the amount that it grows, can not be real.

Plot: The climax of this story is when Plantzilla grows to be so big that he is overtaking the house and eating all the food! Mortimer and his parents are out of ideas of what to do and they write to the teacher about what to do. The parents write one about how to get rid of it and Mortimer writes one asking to convince his parents to let him keep it. Letters come back and the parents end up falling in love with the plant and saying it's a plant that every boy deserves. Mortimer almost lost his plant, but ended up being able to keep it.

Media: Watercolor and pencil ( )

A boy named Mortimer takes a plant called Plantzilla home over the summer. The plant grows to extreme proportions and gains intelligence and eventually becomes a part of the family.

Plantzilla uses an interesting technique of expressing the narrative through a series of letters. While this does allow for each of the unique characters’ voices to be heard it does not always properly express some plot points. For example, I was confused as to why the parents decided to not send Plantzilla away. Also, because some of the story is from the perspective of Mortimer’s mother, some of the vocabulary may be beyond the reading level of the students and may not be able to be deciphered from the context. While the art is grand, some of the illustrations began to look too similar as I kept reading.