A Seed Is Sleepy #20
Dianne Hutts Aston

Aston, Dianne Hutts. (2007). A seed is sleepy. San Francisco: Chronicle.

Awards: School Library Book

Grade Level: K-3

Content Area: Science

Standards: Life Science (classify, environment, ecology)

Author’s Credibility: Dianne does a lot of investigation in her backyard with her children. Dianne and Sylvia have won several awards on books that they worked on together. Sylvia says that her love for animals and the outdoors inspire her to include them her in paintings.

Summary: An information book that introduces children to the many kinds of seeds and plant facts. The author uses beautiful illustrations to describe how seeds grow and move through the environment. The text is written in a soft and poetic tone. It is very descriptive showing other seeds, diagrams, and charts on an oversized page. Sometimes the illustrations are a two-page spread because they are so big.

Access Features: Endpapers are covered with all kinds of seeds and their names. On the jacket cover, there is information about the author and illustrator.

Illustrations: Ink and watercolors

Tone: Conversational, soft

Classroom Use: I would use with plants, but also with language to identify verbs and adjectives.

Response: This book is by the same author (Aston) of An Egg Is Quiet that Debbie read last week. When I began to read the book, I could not hear myself reading. I could only hear Debbie’s voice coming through reading softly and quietly. I could even see her face. Isn’t that something?

I also liked the way the author used personification in the book. She acted like the seed was a person going somewhere.

Science Processes: Classifying, inferring, predicting, observing