Mary Auld is an award-winning writer of children's information books, most notably
How To Build an Orchestra with the London Symphony Orchestra. Mary Auld is a pen
name for Rachel Cooke, former Editorial Director at Hachette and an honorary fellow
of the English Association in recognition of her work in children's non-fiction.

Dawn Cooper is a talented British illustrator with a passion for nature. Her recent books
include Insect Emporium and Ocean Emporium (Egmont) and Up Close (Wren & Rook).
She lives in Bristol, England.

Welcoming and engaging, the Start Small, Think Big series does a particularly nice job of tracing the life cycle of flora and fauna, while also placing it within a larger environmental context. . . Little, Brown Nut follows a Brazil nut in a South American rain forest as it falls from its parent tree, is buried by an agouti, sprouts roots, and eventually grows to towering heights. Of particular note is the spread showing the different rain-forest layers and the new tree's position therein. . . The real wow-factor appears in the book's final spread, which folds out into a four-page display that includes a map, an illustrated recap of the plant or animal life cycle, an "I-Spy" feature that sends kids back through the book, and a "Think Big!" box of big-picture facts. --Julia Smith, Booklist

"In an invitation to "Think Big," a fallen Brazil nut explains where it came from and what it will grow into. In Amazon rainforest settings that teem with flora and fauna, Auld and Cooper follow the nut as it is buried and forgotten by an agouti ("like a guinea pig, but with longer legs"), then germinates and over many years grows into a majestic tree that houses wildlife from tiny Brazil-nut poison frogs to harpy eagles. Joining the nutty narrator with additional details delivered in smaller type, the author describes how the flowers, which have evolved to be accessible only to female orchid bees, are pollinated and become nuts that fall either to grow, to be eaten by animals, or to be gathered by human "castañeros"--who also protect their livelihoods by helping to protect the trees from illegal loggers. The Brazil nut tree is a "rainforest superstar," she concludes on a foldout page at the end, and can live for a thousand years if allowed. The same foldout features maps of rainforests worldwide, as well as images of animals that appeared in previous scenes for readers to go back and spot. Nutritious and digestible, just like its narrator." -Kirkus Reviews

Publisher: Red Comet Press

Pub date: 2024-03-26

Length: 28 pages