Scale a magical plant and unearth your colourful community with Flower Block by Lanisha Butterfield – a fairytale exploration of home and nature.
What is Flower Block by Lanisha Butterfield about?
Flower Block is a glorious fusion of the fairytale and the everyday, with a magical plant bursting up from the seeds planted by Jerimiah and his brother.
As it snakes up through the floors of their tower block home, the brothers run to apologise to all their neighbours and discover a varied array of people, all keen to join them on their adventures.
But what will be waiting for them at the top of the beanstalk? And what will their grumpy neighbour, Old Man Crisp, have to say?
Why teach Flower Block?
Flower Block is Lanisha Butterfield’s debut picture book, inspired by her own childhood. She wants to represent children like her – from tower blocks and council estates, from biracial or single-parent families – in a positive light.
With Flower Block, Butterfield aims to challenge misconceptions of council estate life. It is so important that children are exposed to books that reflect the realities they live in, and that provide windows into the lives of others.
Flower Block is a great story for exploring ideas of home and community, and the power of nature to unite people. The book was shortlisted for the Teach Early Years Awards 2024.
Starter activity
Really looking closely at the cover of a book is a good way to get children thinking about what they are about to read by inferring information, and making links to pre-existing knowledge and experiences.
There are lots of details in the front cover of Flower Block for pupils to explore and ponder over. Here are some questions you could use to promote discussion:
- What is the title?
- What do you notice about the style of font used for each word in the title? Why has the illustrator done this?
- How is the title a play on words? (Flower block, not tower block.)
- Who are the author and illustrator?
- What kind of building can you see? Does anyone here live in a building that’s similar?
- What is unusual about this tower block? Is the plant a ‘normal’ plant?
- Can anyone think of a fairy story that has a giant vine in it? (Jack and the Beanstalk.)
- How many people can you see on the cover? What are they all doing? Which ones would you like to visit?
- How many pets can you see?
- Who do you think the main characters are? Why?
Jo Cummins is an experienced primary school teacher and English leader. As well as blogging about new children’s books, and creating educational resources, she has been involved in long-listing and judging national books awards. Jo currently works for a specialist educational provision in Hampshire in a teaching and advisory role.
