This modern fable about nature's power from Kate Greenaway Medal winner Levi Pinfold begins with a farmer finding a green baby—a greenling—in a giant flower. When Mr. Barleycorn picks the baby greenling from its bed and brings it home, he unleashes forces he never imagined: zucchinis begin to flower in the kitchen, and carrots sprout out of the television, and Mr. Barleycorn's wife insists that the greenling has got to go—but the bounty and beauty of nature unexpectedly brings a whole community together. With a rhyming text for readers 4 to 7, the book's realistic images of a strange yet wonderful world will appeal to older readers as well.

"The rhyme scheme is gentle and soothing, and Pinfold's luminous mixed-media illustrations are gloriously strange. This fable about the power of the outside world and the balance between technology and nature is important, and the story itself is haunting and austere."—Booklist (starred review)