Two floppy eared friends, three seeds, and one sunflower that does not survive the week. Bella plants the seeds as a gift for Lucy, and when a sprout snaps in half the rabbits go looking for something that lives deep inside the plant itself. What follows is a bedtime story that also happens to answer, in words a four year old follows easily, the question children ask the moment a bottle comes out of the cupboard: what is that, and why does it help?

Krista Wigginton wrote it because there was nothing like it on the shelf. Kim Wasson Tener painted every page in soft pencil and watercolor, the warm, slightly faded palette of a book that already looks loved. At a generous 10 by 10 inches the hardcover opens flat across a lap, wide enough for two children to look at the same spread without arguing about it.

Buy it as the book that goes with the oils, or on its own as a quiet, lovely story about friendship, patience and the way plants take care of us. It reads beautifully at bedtime and holds up to being read again the next night, and the night after that.