With lyrical text, enchanting illustrations and a beautiful fold-out scene to complete the story, this award-winning picture book takes you on a journey through the seasons and years as you follow a seed’s transformation from a seedling to a sapling, then a young tree, until it becomes a large tree with its branches and roots filling the page.

As the tree grows, it is joined by well-loved woodland creatures - squirrels and rabbits, butterflies and owls - who make it their home. A rhyming poem builds page on page, echoing the rings of a growing tree. The story culminates with a fold-out page showing a mature tree shedding seeds to continue the beautiful cycle of life. At the back, find the full poem and facts about the specific tree, a sycamore.

Beautiful and evocative, It Starts With a Seed is a factual story that will touch children with its simple, enchanting message of life and growth.

It Starts with a Seed was the winner of the inaugural Margaret Mallett Award for Children’s Non-Fiction.