This was absolutely adorable. I loved the excuse to read a bunch of little kiddo arcs while pregnant and I will enjoy picking them up in stores.

When Plants Took Over the Planet is a fascinating illustrated reference about the origin of plants on the earth. The text is gorgeously illustrated and informative. I loved learning about plants and how they have evolved over time.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC.

https://bonnevivantetr.wordpress.com/2021/10/04/book-review-when-plants-took-over-the-planet-by-dr-chris-thorogood/

Hello, today I’m back with a brand new book to which I was very kindly given access via NetGalley. This time, I was lucky to read “When Plants Took Over The Planet” by Dr. Chris Thorogood. He is a botanist at the University of Oxford.

The plants used to cover a big portion of the Earth’s surface, they still do but unfortunately, they cover less than they did in the past. The book that I will be talking about today, will help us introduce the past of our everyday plants to our children and show them a glimpse of what the earth looked like a few million years ago.

This book is a part of the “Incredible Evolution” series. And it’s actually aimed for children rather than adult readers. I’m very happy to say that I found this book to be quite entertaining but also educational. Once you open the book, you will also see how it would be incredibly interesting for children thanks to its easy language, beautiful illustrations and understandable but also mysterious way of describing and explaining quite complex scientific notions.

“When Plants Took Over The Planet” explains the evolutionary process through which the plants went from microscopic algae to marine plants and finally coming up to the land. The author shows the readers some incredible ancient extinct plants as well as plants that exist today. There are informative parts about these plants which shows their timelines and biological, geographical and taxonomical properties with an illustration for each plant. The beauty about these descriptions however, is that they’re magical as much as they’re scientific, accurate and full of facts. It opens a fresh window to the botanical life and biodiversity on our planet for us to reopen our eyes to the nature’s beauty and magic and for our children to learn about. Currently, as our planet is dealing with very serious ecological issues, this book is a great opportunity for all its readers to learn how things have been in the past with evolution, how the nature takes care of problems and how it can be in the future as we continue to treat the world as we’re treating it right now.

Before finishing up my discussion, if I’m lucky enough for my review to reach some elementary school teachers, I would like to add that I believe this book would be an amazingly useful tool for you to talk to you students about biodiversity, botany and/or evolution.

Beautiful and informative! I really enjoyed this book and think it would appeal to both older kids and adults alike. While I flipped around to read what interested me, I could see it as an important textbook for your home classroom or a fun coffee table book.

I read this ARC via NetGalley, with my 11 year old. This is our review.

It was such a joy every evening, to continue our 'date' with "When Plants Took Over the Planet'', reading it but also looking at its stunning illustrations! We learned much about the importance of plants on our planet and why we need to care and protect them. Throughout the pages, we observed how they evolved from tiny ocean plants to land wonders, how they allowed for animal life to appear and thrive; and how they created smart pollination mechanisms to attract little helpers.
The information provided is just enough for 9-12 years old.

We are definitely going to check out other books from Chris Thorogood and his research as well.

This is such an interesting book and so full of information! This is one that I definitely think should be in classrooms and libraries and would be something to be referenced again and again. Definitely purchasing for my library.

I love this series. We use when whales walked and when we became humans for school and so this book worked perfectly. When you learn about when earth was formed and you learn about dinosaurs and humans and sea creatures you don't think much about the plants and how they became what we see now. It's beautifully illustrated and extremely informative. I will definitely be getting a hardcover version of this

Chris Thorogood’s When Plants Took Over the Plant is a fantastic full color picture book on the evolution of plants. With detailed factual information and beautiful illustrations, this is a fantastic resource for mid-upper elementary kids and their loving adults. Suitable for both home and classroom use, the book takes a wonderful look at botanical evolution.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was provided by the publisher. Originally posted at Novel Obsession.

Thanks to Netgalley and Quarto - QEB publishing for the ARC of this in exchange for my honest review.

This was absolutely gorgeous, exactly the kind of book that I love in include in our homeschooling. The art was absolutely beautiful, there wasn't too much text to be uncomfortable reading aloud the full two page spread for each type of plant, and it was easy enough for my 3rd grader to understand. I want to point out that I *love* that the author included pronunciations of scientific names, I think all middle grade non-fiction would benefit from pronunciation alongside words that might be unfamiliar, new readers especially who are having English phonics drilled in can find these words very confusing without a guide. I'd definitely recommend this to go alongside learning about dinosaurs, different time periods, evolution, and/or plants.

Before bugs, animals, or birds, there were plants. They were first as utility, then as fodder, later for beauty. Beautifully and comprehensively illustrated by Amy Grimes and put together by a team headed by renowned Science writer Chris Thorogood in language aimed at nonscientists/plant biologists, this is an excellent learning tool for people of many ages and English language abilities. Loved it and plan to gift it to our local library.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from Quarto Publishing Group – QEB Publishing via NetGalley. Thank you!

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalleyand the publishers.
When Plants Took Over the Planet is a beautifully illustrated and in depth book about how plants first grew on earth and how they evolved.
This book is so well set out and really interesting.
There is information about how plants started, evolution, what plants can be found where, what plants are still alive, illustrated pictures with information and so much more.
This book is aimed at ages 7 - 11 and would be a fantastic resource for any classroom especially for children when learning about evolution in science!
.

No word of a lie, but in the last couple of years "clade" was a University Challenge answer, and only the week I read this book Only Connect asked what followed eons and periods. And yet both terms come to this school book early. But that's not because this is mindbogglingly difficult to read – it's because it's perfectly thorough, well presented, and the only book of its type a school could need. In looking back to the days of early plants we start with hints towards understanding DNA, evolution and Latin names for life-forms, and then hit the ground running with one or two full-page spreads dedicated to each specific form of plant, from the algae and the early kinds, up to the ferns, and then the seeded plants with flowers that came later. Each spread gets an introduction, and an attractive selection of visuals, either specific diagrams or landscapes with (named) critters running about. Where possible the relevant plants are ones that are on our Earth today, showing that while evolution seems to hit some things fast, plants here might not have changed a frond in 180 million years. OK, not every schoolchild is going to want to do a project on green things that have long since become coal and burned, but the benefits of this volume are manifold. My copy switched quite violently from imperial to metric measurements, but I am sure that will be sorted out to make this a resounding success.

The detail is amazing. It is a visually beautiful book. The content is very complicated but educational. It would be a great resource to go into history and science.

I feel like it is too much for primary children but not enough for secondary.

This book goes into a good amount of detail about how various plants developed. There is lots of interesting information about ancient plants. I really like how it gives a pronunciation guide and information on when the plant lived - or if it can still be found today. Each plant is also illustrated beautifully. Even as an adult reading this, I learned a lot.

The target audience is set to ages 7-11, grade levels 2-3, so it will be a while before my infant will be ready for this book. However, I think it would be a good addition to our library and even when she is younger than the targeted age group, she can leaf through the book and enjoy the illustrations.

This could be a useful and appealing enrichment or reference book for middle grades school or classroom libraries. There is a great deal of information, but it's broken into logical section and presented in manageable chunks.

The accompanying illustrations are numerous, detailed, and engaging. They will help students engage with and connect to the material presented.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!