Plant Pets

our book! and how to help Selma

Dear Frog Troublers, please forgive the long delay in posts—we’ve been hard at work on our first book (which is due on Tuesday)! We’re writing it for you, your favorite teachers, your kids and grandkids—basically everyone we know.

The book is called Plant Pets, and it’s a kid-to-kid guide to growing and enjoying houseplants in your home (or school). It’s written by both of us, but in Bea’s voice, with her fun and humorous explanatory style, as well as her endless curiosity and enthusiasm about sharing cool information. For example, did you know that the first bonsai were potted in China somewhere around 1,000 BC? Or that Cleopatra is believed to have used aloe plants in her beauty routine? Or that moss removes more carbon from that atmosphere than trees? We didn’t, until we started researching this book!

But Plant Pets is also very practical. Bea shows you how to determine the different kinds of light you have in your home (a trick we learned from Jeff Baldwin at the Orchid Gallery in Pittsboro) so you can choose the best spot for your plant. She focuses on houseplants that are easiest for kids to grow and source inexpensively or free, from pothos to mother of thousands to air plants, with a few detours for totally doable but slightly trickier ones, like orchids (Bea’s favorites) and Venus flytraps. And we show you how to do so many crafts and activities to share your love of plants—from art projects (like the “plant head” air plant holder Bea made me for Christmas, shown above) to easy classroom experiments.

We interviewed all kinds of plant people for this book, too—from a senior in horticulture science at NC State to a doctor of plant physiology who studies ferns and mosses to our very own veterinarian (who gives advice on keeping your furry pets safe). All of these interviews happen to have an NC State connection—which is how, by the way the book got started, with some very droopy succulents I brought back from my office there, way back at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Bea was in kindergarten then, doing Zoom school from home, and feeling a little bored and lonely. When she saw my mistreated succulents, she went into what she calls “plant savior mode.” She repotted, watered, misted and checked on those plants every day. They’re doing well now, and live among the thirty or so plants that Bea keeps in her bedroom.

I’ve really enjoyed learning about plant care from Bea, and I’ve loved helping her make connections with the fantastic role models we’ve met along the way.

A personally special thing about the project is the editor we’re working with. I first met Hannah Fries when I worked with her on my first long research-driven essay for Orion Magazine. That essay, “The Art of Waiting,” became the title essay in my first nonfiction book, which was published when Bea was almost three years old.

One day, when she was maybe three and a half, Bea was looking at the cover and asked, “Is this book about me?”

“Yes,” I told her. “In a way, I suppose it is.”

“I thought so,” she said.

I would not have written that book without Hannah’s wise, patient editorial guidance, so it feels appropriate and so fortunate that the book I’d write with the daughter I didn’t know then I’d eventually be so lucky to have would be written with Hannah’s guidance too. Hannah is now an editor at Storey Press, a division of Hachette, which describes themselves as “a community of doers who love to grow, build, create, and explore the world around us.” That sounds like us, right?

Plant Pets won’t be out until summer 2024, but early reviews are strong:

“This book is delightful!” -Richard Allen, Bea’s dad

“I can’t wait to read it!” -Buttons Boggs, Bea’s Mamie

We look forward to sharing some of the extra information that didn’t fit into the book, along with the process of working with Hannah and the other editors and book designers. And, of course, some of the other new things we’re learning about. Like, where does your recycling go and how can you make sure it actually gets recycled? And what’s the deal with worm composting? And, of course, what’s going on with the Haw River and all the plants and animals that live there? What else are you curious about, Frog Troublers?

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In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, please consider donating to relief efforts in Selma, Alabama, which was devastated by tornadoes on Friday. Selma is a small town (only about 17,000 people), and hallowed ground for anyone who cares about voting rights in America. Bea and I were lucky to visit, back in April, with a group of wonderful people from North Carolina. We learned about the history of young voting rights activists from Dianne Harris, who was only 15 when she began organizing with other teenagers in Selma, and who participated in the 1965 march, led by Dr. King, from Selma to Montgomery. We walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We visited the National Voting Rights Museum. We saw some beautiful streetside murals and had a fantastic meal.

But we also noticed, and Ms. Dianne told us, how neglected many parts of Selma’s downtown are. The roads are bumpy with potholes. Many of the old brick buildings are crumbling. Last year, Brown Chapel AME was named the most endangered historic site in the nation by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Alabama’s government is still predominantly white-led and Republican, and they are clearly not invested in serving all the people—or the history—of Alabama.

(AP image of Selma from DroneBase)

Maybe eventually Alabama’s government will be more representative of all her people. Maybe we’ll make oil companies pay for all the disasters caused and exacerbated by climate crisis (as these tornadoes likely were). But we all owe the people of Selma a debt of gratitude, and giving something back is one way to honor them, and the life of the man we’re all meant to remember tomorrow.

Donate what you can to United Way of Central Alabama or The Black Belt Community Foundation.

P.S. Dianne Harris encourages everyone to read this Washington Post article, “Selma is tired of being just a symbol—it wants change.”