Mara Plants a Seed - Hardcover

by Donna Jo Napoli (Author), Robert Furrow (Author), Melissa Bailey (Illustrator)

Winner of the 2026 Green Earth Book Award for excellence in environmental storytelling, recognized for its vital role in teaching the next generation about stewardship through the power of community and environmental interdependence.

With lyrical language and blooming illustrations, Mara Plants a Seed demonstrates the transformative power of simple actions. By cleaning up an empty lot and planting fifty sunflower seeds, Mara begins to create a flourishing, wild garden--but she doesn't do it alone.

Little does Mara know, flying insects, digging worms, hungry birds, noisy neighbors, and other secret gardeners are working to help transform the lot into something even more beautiful than she imagined. Rain storms wash away seeds, but rabbits leave some behind. Some helpers nibble up weeds, and others fertilize the soil. Each time Mara visits the garden, she's expecting to see her sunflowers growing. But as the flowers blossom, she uncovers the exciting secrets waiting for her!

Mara Plants a Seed inspires young readers to develop a deeper connection to the environment around them and study the many ways natural processes and ordinary animals help plants grow and thrive. Children will watch as Mara's simple action of restoring an empty lot transforms a community and the beautiful way the garden bursts to life.

Author Biography

Robert Furrow is a gardener, a wildlife educator, and a birder. He is also a professor of teaching at the University of California, Davis, where he lives with his wife and daughters and dog. He teaches many shades of introductory biology, including wildlife natural history and how to garden for wildlife habitat. This is his sixth book co-authored with his mother Donna Jo Napoli.

Donna Jo Napoli has published books for preschoolers through high schoolers. She is a gardener, a dancer, and a dual citizen of Italy and America. She is also a linguist who works on sign languages, advocates for the language rights of deaf children, and co-directs the website RISE, which offers bimodal-bilingual video books for free. She lives with her husband outside Philadelphia.

Melissa Bailey is the daughter of an avid gardener and granddaughter of a farmer. However, though she has her own jungle of potted plants in her studio, her green thumb usually is the result of sticking it in paint rather than inherited horticultural skill.

Melissa is the author-illustrator of two picture books and has illustrated over 50 children's books. In 2019, she won the Moonbeam Awards silver medal for Best Illustrator (Steve the Dung Beetle: On a Roll, Pygmy Giraffe Publishing). She loves living in rural Michigan, Melissa loves living in rural Michigan somewhere between Flint and Detroit, thinks it would be awesome to live in a treehouse, and tries to remember to water her plants.