Flora Most Curious by Tania McCartney

Title: Flora Most Curious

Author: Tania McCartney

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: NLA Publishing

Published: 1^st October 2024

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 48

Price: $29.99

Synopsis: When it comes to flora, Australia is a land of diversity. From rainforests to deserts, mountains to the seashore, 90 per cent of our plant life is unique to this ancient land. Treasures like our wattles, eucalypts, grass trees and banksias are part of our heritage and identity—and they still flourish here today, on the oldest landmass on Earth.

Flora celebrates and highlights these diverse and curious plants, looking into the history, quirks and uses of our native plants, and how vital they are for our unique ecosystems. Tania McCartney brings her trademark skill and style in both writing and illustration, using her substantial experience in children’s literature to examine Australia’s botanical riches to pick out engaging, informative and surprising facts to share with young readers.

The book includes spreads on the Gondwana Garden, Deadly Flora, Bush Food, Flora Ancestry and more. Meet the Tasmanian mountain ash, which is both the world’s tallest flowering plant and the tallest hardwood tree, growing more than a metre each year … for up to 400 years! Share in a park ranger’s discovery of a living Jurassic fossil deep in a secret sandstone canyon. Learn how to avoid the most painful plant on earth, the gympie gympie, whose fine little hairs inject a fiery venom that feels like acid and electrocution all at once!

The author introduces readers to hard science too, including information on plant classification, countless cool scientific facts and binomial names and scientific terms, with a handy glossary aimed at children at the back of the book.

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Non-fiction picture books are starting to become more popular these days. They cover all sorts of topics, and the most recent one is Flora Most Curious by Tania McCartney. This informative book explores native flora in Australia, and the thousands of plants that are part of the biodiversity of Australia. Australia’s flora is unique and ancient, and covers deserts, rainforests, mountains and the sea shore, and everything in between. It also explores deadly plants, to teach people to know what to avoid. This informative book covers what the plants are, what they do, how they function, what they do, and their status of concern. This goes from least concern to extinct, to highlight the importance of these plants in the Australian environment.

The significance of books like these is that they are educational, informative and entertaining. Tania’s new book revitalises our understanding of native flora beyond the plants that everyone knows about. It explains the role flora has had in Australia’s environment over many thousands of years, and the impact that is still has today. Key elements of this book are the delightful illustrations that accompany the text, giving readers an idea of what the plants look like. It’s the kind of book that is most suited to older readers, and would fall under the category of picture books for older readers. A book like this is a great educational tool for all ages, and positions itself as a good starting point to delve into further research. For younger readers, it is a good resource to explore the basics of these fascinating plants. And for anyone, it is a great starting place for facts and figures, and gives you what you need to get going on a research project, or to find out what plants you could use to set a scene in a story.

I felt like it had something for everyone. All readers will be drawn to a part of this book, and will find something that interests them I think it’ll be a good starting point for research for people working across a range of jobs and industries, including creative ones. I love books like this that can help me build a world or plan an aspect of a novel – all in different ways depending on what I am writing. It is the kind of book that interesting to different people for different reasons, and is another fantastic book from the publishing arm of the National Library of Australia, and author Tania McCartney.