• Age: 4 to 8
• Grade: p to 3

Warning -- this book contains top-secret information about flowers! Prepare to be shocked and weirded out by this hilarious and totally true picture book introduction to some of nature's strangest plants.

Flowers are beautiful. They have bright colors, soft petals and sweet nectar. Yum! But that's not the whole truth. Flowers can be WEIRD . . . and one bee is here to let everyone know! Talking directly to the reader, a bee reveals how flowers are so much stranger than what we think. Did you know that there are some flowers that only bloom in the nighttime? Some flowers are spooky, and look like ghosts, or bats, or a monster's mouth. And while most flowers smell good, there are some that smell like dead meat, or even horse poop!

This hilarious and refreshing book with silly and sweet illustrations explores the science of flowers and shows that these plants are not always stereotypically pretty and harmless as we often think they are -- they are fascinating, disgusting, complicated and amazing.

Rosemary Mosco is a science communicator, acclaimed cartoonist, and speaker on all things bird. She's the creator of the webcomic Bird and Moon and has authored many science books for young people, including co-authoring the bestselling Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid. She lives in Massachusetts.

Rosemary Mosco's profile page

Jacob Souva's profile page

One of CCBC's Best Books for Kids & Teens (Fall 2022)

"[I]nformative words are accompanied by pretty textured illustrations. . . . Both educational and humorous, this is highly recommended." —STARRED REVIEW, School Library Journal

"Jacob Souva's illustrations keep a playful scrapbook aesthetic . . . [and] Mosco's simple wordings and frequent bee check-ins keep the book grounded and engaging, particularly as an interactive lap read." —CM Reviews

"Buzz on through the pages for a silly, yet informative, tour of the wild and weird world of flowers." —Story Monsters Ink