The Cabbage Seed's Colossal Secret - Perfect Picture Book Friday #PPBF

Feb 20
3 min read

Updated: Feb 27

How do you make a nonfiction story about gardening and sharing harvests with hungry people different, exciting, and unusual? Make it an informational fiction, based on a true story, and write it in the second person and sprinkle in a bit of whimsy. This is such a fun and engaging way to explore the event which triggered the creation of Katie's Krops, a nationwide, nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging and enabling kids to "start and maintain vegetable gardens of all sizes and donate the harvest to help feed people in need."

Book cover - a girl sits on an enormous head of cabbage with blue and white hydrangeas blooming in the foreground.

The Cabbage Seed's Colossal Secret

Author: Karen M. Greenwald

Illustrator: Alejandra Ruiz

Publisher: Tilbury House Publishers (February 17, 2026)

Ages: 4-8

Informational Fiction

Themes:

Gardening, nature, homelessness, poverty, empowerment, and community.

Synopsis:

A child plants a tiny seed and wonders what secrets it might hold.

As it grows and grows and grows, she nurtures the little plant until it isn’t so little anymore―in fact, it’s COLOSSAL. What does one do with a colossal cabbage? The girl dreams that the cabbage feeds a soup kitchen full of neighbors, inspiring her to grow more veggies to share with her community, inspiring kids and families all over the country to grow veggies to share with their own communities. And when she wakes up, she is ready to let the world in on the cabbage’s colossal secret.

Inspired by the true story of Katie Stagliano, her forty-pound cabbage, and the nonprofit Katie’s Krops. Backmatter includes ways for readers to start their own sharing garden.

Opening Lines:

If someone

gives you a tiny seed,

you'll want to plant it

in a secret spot.

Sprinkle it

with water.

And wait.

What I LOVED about this book:

This opening reminded me so much of If You Give A Mouse a Cookie. It has a similar rhythm and directly addresses the reader. The enticement of a "secret spot" and Alejandra Ruiz's softly colored illustrations and sweet depiction of the main character and her cat draw you right into the garden with the child.

Internal spread - a garden in front of a house full of hydrangea bushes, with a girl and her cat happily lying in the grass by a freshly dug hole.

Text © Karen Greenwald, 2026. Image © Alejandra Ruiz, 2026.

The wonderful child-like whimsy of telling jokes and doing magic tricks, experimenting with dance moves, and reading books as a means of helping the newly planted little seed grow, is so perfect and beautifully depicted in the illustrations. In addition to highlighting an amazing true story, it also includes the scientifically accurate growth pattern of cabbage. Even if it grows big enough for your cat to perch on it and convince your piano teacher that "it's an alien."

Internal spread - on the left a cat sits perched on top of a giant cabbage. On the right, a girl plays piano and the instructor worriedly looks out the window at the giant cabbage.

Text © Karen Greenwald, 2026. Image © Alejandra Ruiz, 2026.

I do love that eyes and antennae appear just for the piano teacher. Deciding to take desperate action, first warm up with weights and stretch (while your cat curls around a jump rope!). But you discover one person can't pull it up, so of course you grab a scale and gather your family. Together you discover you've grown a 40-pound cabbage! Since trying to move and figure out what to do with that much cabbage wears you out, you obviously need a snooze with your cat!

Internal spread - on the left, a girl holding a potted plant in front of a big garden imagining seeds streaming into packets, going into boxes, and heading out in the mail toward three kids growing their own garden. On the right, three adults and a kid serving food and hope to families.

Using the backdrop of a dream, the text and illustrations whimsically draw the reader through the true events which Katie experienced with her actual 40-pound cabbage. Weaving through Katie's joy in feeding hundreds of hungry families with her colossal cabbage, planting more and encouraging others to join in, and ultimately creating her own business as a child (Katie's Krops) are ingenious and creative, colorful swirls that extend the girl's dream across the final six spreads to a challenge issued to the readers. Back matter expounds on Katie's story, her colossal cabbage, and ways readers can create gardens. This is such a uniquely inventive and touching way to bring the reader into this woman's remarkable story.

Resources:

create your own garden, whether in a corner of your yard, a raised bed, or container on your patio or deck, or help out in a community garden.

what would you be most excited to grow? Why?

Event flier with photo of author Karen Greenwald & book cover.

Karen and the National Women's History Musuem invite you to her free virtual book launch:

Date: Mar 13, 2026

Time: 1:00 pm - 1:45 pm

Free Registration Link

If you missed my interview with Karen Greenwald on Monday, find it (here).

This post is part of a series of blog posts by authors and KidLit bloggers called Perfect Picture Book Fridays. For more picture book suggestions and resources see Susanna Leonard Hill's Perfect Picture Books.