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  • Published: 9 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9780593531532
  • Imprint: PEN US eBook Childrens
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

The Botany of Desire Young Readers Edition

Our Surprising Relationship with Plants




By the bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, this is Michael Pollan's ingenious companion book about the surprising and close relationship between people and plants.

In this entertaining young readers edition of the environmental studies classic, Michael Pollan demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a reciprocal relationship. He links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, energy, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, coffee, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also helped them to thrive.

The Botany of Desire is perfect for STEM-focused young readers who want to learn more about:

  • human history, biology, and environmentalism
  • climate change and its impact on our relationship with plants
  • gardening and the human-plant relationship
  • Published: 9 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9780593531532
  • Imprint: PEN US eBook Childrens
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

About the author

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is an award-winning author, activist and journalist. His international best-selling books about the way we live today –including How to Change Your Mind, This Is Your Mind on Plants, In Defence of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma­ – combine meticulous reporting with anthropology, philosophy, culture, health and natural history. Time Magazine has named him one of the hundred most influential people in the world. He lives in the Bay Area of California with his wife.

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