From Tiny To Mighty, Above And Below, Watch Them Go

From Tiny To Mighty, Above And Below, Watch Them Go

Without fail near Mother’s Day every year, a deliberate, planned treasure hunt began.  Unlike many treasure hunts, there was no map with a large «X» marking a spot.  To be sure, there were areas to check, but much depended on the weather and the type of spring we were having.  As a child and then later as a teen, I am not sure which was more fun, watching my father seek and find the elusive morel mushroom or finding them myself.
How my dad acquired his skills as a morel mushroom hunter or, for that matter, skills at finding other edible mushrooms is a mystery, but our meals were better for his knowledge.  For him and every reader with a desire to learn about the fantastic abilities of living species to be found around us in the natural world,
Fungi Grow
(
Beach Lane Books
, an imprint of
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
, October 17, 2023) written with infinite care by Maria Gianferrari with exquisite artwork by Diana Sudyka is a title as precious and delicious as the morel mushroom.  A poetic, lively and informative narrative accompanied by detailed, colorful images highlights a realm deserving our attention.
Fungi grow.
Start with a spore—
a sort of seed.
Readers journey from unusual places on fungi by unusual modes of transportation.  Self-generated breezes, rain, unsuspecting animals, slim, and malodorous smells help spores to move.  Once these spores have landed, they begin to fashion roots.
These rootlike formations, named hyphae, free enzymes which act as agents of change, breaking down and taking back.  The hyphae make threads, like cotton, which spread underground.  These mycelium are responsible for what we see above ground.
Some mushrooms rely on trees for their life.  Trees make what they cannot. They in turn provide trees with minerals.  They, mycorrhizal fungi, connect trees to one another so they can send messages which can warn other trees of danger.
Some edible fungi are found above and below ground.  Other mushrooms begin small, grow up and then spread out like dancers’ dresses.  Fungi can be found on dead wood, looking like shelves, tiny umbrellas, or colorful, striped tutus.
Fungi come in shapes and sizes and colors that defy imagination.  Large or small they make their presence known.  They can punch through cement or asphalt or thrive where everything else has died.  They can be deadly or can help.  They are an essential, magnificent piece of the puzzle we call life.
Much like the path a spore takes,
Maria Gianferrari
, through her extensive research and gifted writing, takes readers roaming with purpose through the world of fungi.  Repetition of the title phrase ties portions of the narrative together like mycorrhizal fungi.  Alliteration and rhyming invite us deeper into the text.  Explanatory paragraphs further inform us beneath lyrical statements.  Here are two connecting passages.
Spores catapult, sail, wander with wind.
PUFF!
Cottony rot …