A sweet, heartfelt exploration of botany and friendship in the bustling city of New York!

The Green Kingdom is a botanical tale set against the urban backdrop of Brooklyn, where the world of plants comes alive through a series of mysterious letters. At the heart of the story are two sisters, whose correspondence centers around green riddles. As a reader, I let myself be taken in by the game and tried solving the riddles before the characters, learning about botany along the way. The pattern of the riddles adds structure to the story, although it can feel a little monotonous at times. Despite this, the heartfelt narrative, rich in discovery and nature, keeps the story moving forward. You'll definitely want to know how the story ends.

Thank you to NetGalley and DK for the ARC. This is my honest opinion of the book. This review is now available on Goodreads.

📚 Book Review 📚

This is a lovely children’s story about moving cities, forging new friendships and discovering the beauty of nature.

Twelve year old Caspia moves to Brooklyn with her parents when her dad gets a new job and she really doesn’t want go. When she finds a bundle of old letters in the apartment, Caspia’s world opens up to discover the impact of nature on the lives on two sisters many years ago.

This book is full of information about the natural world and the myths and legends which surround plants and flowers. The riddles are fun and exciting and it’s a great introduction for young readers to the history and love of nature.

I’d like to thank DK Children, NetGalley and the author for the arc and the fantastic opportunity, in exchange for my honest feedback 😊

Book released on 6th March 2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is a joy to read. Perfect for children and adults. A story that spreads across the years and the world. Caspia isn’t happy her summer will be spent in NYC away from her friends. But she finds a treasure hunt starting bundle of letters which speak to her across the years. And so her summer adventure starts, as she follows the clues in the to discover plants and new friends, young and old. Her summer actually turns out to be better than she ever expected. And I found this story was so much better than I imagined too. Thank you to DK and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

Caspia is unimpressed when her parents move to Brooklyn for the summer. She's a country girl at heart and sure that she won't settle in the busy city. That is until she discovers a bundle of old letters that takes her on a plant treasure hunt. As Caspia sets out to solve the puzzles, with help from her friends back in Maine, she stumbles across green beauty and magical new friends in the most unexpected of places. I can highly recommend The Green Kingdom. It's a gentle, joyous story of how pushing out of your comfort zone can lead to a world of adventure. The characters are quirky and fun and the stunning illustrations add to the beauty of this wonderful book.

4 Stars
One Liner: Entertaining and informative

Twelve-year-old Caspia is not a fan of cities. She lives in Maine and doesn’t want to move to Brooklyn with her parents even if it is for just three months. However, she discovers a bundle of letters with riddles about plants and finds herself exploring the Green Kingdom, staying connected to her best friends, and making new friends in Brooklyn. Soon, Caspia realizes that home can be more than one place if you are brave enough to let the roots grow.
The story comes in Caspia’s third-person POV.

My Thoughts:
This is my first book by the author (though once upon a time I DNF’d book one of the Ink Heart trilogy). This is a standalone and a short read filled with the beauty of plants, friendships, and hope.
Caspia is an interesting main character. She is almost thirteen and happy in Maine. Naturally, the temporary move to Brooklyn that summer doesn’t make her happy. Her character grows from being set in her ways to becoming adventurous while worrying about ifs and buts. She also learns a lot about plants (from not knowing how an onion grows to caring for her little garden, it’s quite a progress).
Our MC’s best friends, Laryssa and Elle, have distinct personalities and are fun in their own ways. It is easy to see the bonding between the three girls and how they support and tease each other.
The new friends Caspia makes in Brooklyn are also lovely, be it Jemila, Mrs. Wahid, or Ado. There’s good diversity without making it the focus but also not limiting it to a checklist. The balance is just right.
Since the book’s core is Green Kingdom, we learn many intriguing facts and myths about different plants. The riddles in the letters are entertaining. I had a great time guessing them before Caspia. I got more than 60% right, so that’s a win. ;)
That said, there were two clues with Hindu gods, and I have never heard of those… like ever! These are not commonly known. In fact, I’m not sure if these bits really belong to our Puranas or were fabricated over the years through random retellings. I’m curious where the author found them.
There are black and white illustrations (pencil sketches) of the plant/ flower and a few important settings. The sweet illustrations elevate the content and make it easy for young readers to visualize the details. Of course, I still had to google a few plants (and realized one of them is a common plant in India but I had no idea about its name). (Clue: Some people partly consume that flower to taste its nectar.)
The pacing is steady, and the book is the right length for the target audience. However, I wouldn’t have minded seeing Caspia’s efforts to figure out the clues. Thanks to technology, she gets the answers easily. That reminds me how well technology is used in the book. We see the positive usage of technology in providing knowledge and helping people stay connected.
I have to mention Caspia’s parents, especially her mom. Boy, she loves to experiment with food! As a picky eater, I won’t be eager to try her dishes but I’m glad to see her determination and success. The adults on the whole are pretty responsible and good.

To summarize, The Green Kingdom is a lovely read about plants, friendships, and letting one’s roots grow. It is a cozy and charming read. Not much of adventure or danger but something on the emotional/ personal level.
Thank you, NetGalley and DK Children, for eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

I appreciate the themes of this lovely story very much. As a city girl who loved nature, I can see this being a boon to kids born in the digital age. The plot follows the heroine as she learns more about various plants and they help her feel at home in a new place. It's a lovely concept, but... honestly, it felt a bit twee, like the sort of book adults want kids to read rather than the sort of book kids actually love.

This was a very enjoyable novel. I guess I’m not the typical target reader for a young adult novel, but it was sweet, wholesome and well written. I liked the relationships between the characters and the sense of exploring and discovering themselves as well as their surroundings, whilst growing up at the same time. It was a bonus to learn more about the plants and trees they discovered.

Cornelia Funke has a talent worth far more than it's weight in gold as far as I’m concerned, she writes beautiful stories for children of all ages, and as I’m a lot closer to 70 than 7, I include myself within that number. The Green Kingdom is a very special book, beautifully illustrated by Melissa Castrillón, it tells the reader about Caspia, aged 12 and hater of big cities who is less than delighted at being uprooted from her home in rural Maine and transported to Brooklyn for the summer, away from her friends.

Caspia discovers many things during the course of that summer, not least that anywhere can feel like home if we have loving family and friends around us. The discovery starts with the letters. When unpacking her belongings at the apartment her parents have rented for their brief relocation to Brooklyn, Caspia finds a bundle of ten letters hidden in an old chest of drawers. Each letter contains a 'green' riddle which, when solved correctly, will lead to a different plant. Caspia decides to amuse herself by trying to solve all the riddles and whilst doing this she makes her discovery.

The first part of that discovery is that big cities are actually lots of small neighbourhoods all joined together and the second is, that if you are friendly to people, then they are generally friendly back. And without spoiling the book I can say that from this small beginning, everything follows. Caspia spends a magical summer in Brooklyn and has grown as a person because of it.

Cornelia Funke brings her Green Kingdom to life and I honestly feel that this will become a modern classic. Between the author's beautiful prose and the illustrator's delicate artwork, this is a book to be treasured. It's heartwarming and innocent but still dealing with modern times and attitudes and the author never patronises her target audience. This would make a wonderful present at this time of year and I really can't recommend it highly enough - five stars seem totally inadequate.

I recieved a ARC it started off well but unfortunately quite a bit was redacted meaning the story didnt seem to flow.

I've tried to read multiple books by Cornelia funke for many years, as the descriptions always sounded like something I'd enjoy but then I could never get into them.
This book was different. I was almost prepared to not like it, and I never want to go into a book feeling that way. But very quickly I was drawn in by the riddles about plants and Caspian meeting all these wonderful people in Brooklyn.
It reminded me a bit of a more old fashioned children's book in a way. It was pretty simple, but this was effective. There was no big evil to fight or awful thing happening, it was just an all round nice book to read. Great for when you don't want something heavy and you want a book that'll really put a smile on your face

I really enjoyed this book! It's not very often that I read a children's book, but every one that I have read this year I have loved!

Every single riddle in this book was great, and I learned something new about such a range of plants. Where more serious topics, like sexuality or slavery are discussed, these are handled deftly and with beautiful sensitivity, well-suited to the target age of this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes plants and mystery, and wants a brief escape from real life.

The last thing 12 year old Caspia wants is to spend her holidays in the city. Unfortunately, her parents decide that the family is to be based in New York for a few months in order for them to pursue their own dreams.

But everything changes for Caspia when she finds a most unusual bundle of old letters. The contents of the bundle keep her more than occupied, and change her perspective on nature, the city and the the dreams that she might have for her own life in the years ahead...

This is world class world building, firing the imagination of the reader and nurturing a love for the natural world in general, and plants in particular.

There is intrigue and adventure aplenty to be had here. Highly recommended for readers in the target group, and adults who want to remain connected with how their inner child engages with the wonders of the world around them.

Heartwarming city adventures

I am way outside the target audience for this book, but my daughter is a big fan of Cornelia Funke’s fantasy series and keeps saying I should read her books, so when I was offered an ARC I decided to give it a go.
A few hours later (it’s a quick read for an adult) I am so happy I did so, this is a delightful story of displacement, and of finding friendship and beauty through nature in one of the biggest cities in the world. I was also surprised about finding the theme of foraging and appreciation of what plants and flowers have to offer us, clearly the influence of co-author Tammi Hartung, who I also suggest to look up if you’re at all interested in modern herbalism.
I heartily recommend The Green Kingdom for children and adults alike, now I have one more prolific author to add to my ever expanding fiction reading list, and another for my cookbook wishlist :)

Note: I received this book for free as an ARC from #NetGalley but the opinions above are mine and unbiased.

I found out about this through NetGalley and the plot and author were enough for me to claim it.  It's very definitely a children's book but that's okay, it makes it a nice easy read.  The basic premise is that a young girl is spending her summer in Brooklyn and finds some old letters between a pair of sisters.  The letters contain riddles to various plants and the young girl investigates them, finding new friends and connections to the city as she does so.  I quite enjoyed it and I think it will be appealing to younger readers.  I really liked how the riddles included myths and legends for the various plants as well as historical facts for their uses.  It would be nice if the younger readers were introduced not only to the natural world as a result of this book, but also to the various myths and legends mentioned.  

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me a copy to review.

I came to Cornelia Funke's stories as a grown-up, when my daughter would borrow, and re-borrow, and borrow again 'Dragon Rider' and I wondered what had so captured her attention! I enjoy her style of writing, and this new book didn't disappoint. It's the story of Caspia, a young pre-teen who has to spend the summer in Brooklyn, much to her dismay, but she soon makes a host of friends after discovering a mysterious bundle of letters between two sisters from long ago. They each contain a puzzle about a plant, and Caspia finds herself wandering across Brooklyn, trying to discover all of these plants, and putting down roots of her own along the way.

As someone who moved a lot as a child, I definitely identified with Caspia's feelings around living somewhere new. I would have devoured this book as a child, and even as a grown-up I raced through it quickly and found it very enjoyable. It's quite simply told, but the characters are interesting, and I liked all the puzzles around real plants, some of which I found easy to figure out and some less so. It perhaps lacked some of the depth that Inkheart has, but it is still a really lovely story.

Whilst this is a book probably directed for a younger reader I really enjoyed it. Whilst the story itself was fairly simple and very pleasant. The details around the plants, their history, properties and legends were fascinating.
The story explores what happens when a family uproot even for a short period. And how what was unfamiliar can quickly become familiar and how quickly friendships can develop. I liked the interlinking between the different culture, the pleasure of cooking and the skills of the gardener and how they weaved the story.
A very enjoyable read and certainly one I will be buying for my teenage granddaughter

12-year old Caspia and her parents are spending a few months in Brooklyn over the summer, and Caspia is not excited. On her first day there, she finds 10 letters from Rosalind to her sister Minna, who lived in the apartment they're staying at. Rosalind was traveling with her father, and would send riddles to her sister describing various plants. This means - of course - that Caspia spends her summer solving the plant riddles, making great friends along the way, while her mum tries to come up with new recipes to go with every plant she identifies.

I haven't read anything by Cornelia Funke since I aged out of the target audience about 15 years ago. I do have clear memories of my dad 'borrowing' the inkheart books after I'd gone to bed and spending several days waiting for him to stop reading so I could start. Infuriating back then, but after reading 'The Green Kingdom' I completely get it - I'd probably steal this off a child too 😇

It's a lovely little novel from an author who clearly appreciates that kids are smart and curious. It's also very likely to have your child attempting to identify every plant she sees for a while (and wanting to cook with it). I'd happily recommend it for all generations - but either read it together or wait until your child is done!

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC❤️

An absolutely joyful story of family and friendship; of discovering yourself, and putting down roots; and the wonder and beauty of plants and stories

Caspia isn't looking forward to the summer, now that she's heard she won't be spending it at home in Maine with best friends Ellie and Laryssa. Her dad has a job in Brooklyn so Caspia and her parents will be living there for the eleven weeks of summer. Caspia is even less impressed when she sees where they'll be staying; the apartment is old-fashioned and everything is covered in floral patterns. It's so much noisier than her quiet home and she's unsure how she'll survive the boredom of the trip, until she finds the letters. In a flower-patterned chest of drawers, Caspia finds a bundle of letters written by a previous occupant of the apartment and these, with their green-themed riddles, set her off on an adventure that helps to open her eyes to everything Brooklyn has to offer, if she'll just give it a go.

I really enjoyed this story. It's a proper feel-good, fast-moving story full of lovely characters, places and things: books, plants, cooking and friendship.

You'll need to suspend belief a bit and just go with it but it's really nice to read a good adventure where there are no 'baddies' or adversity, just a nice story of a girl moving to a new place, embracing what it has to offer and meeting lots of lovely people on the way.

Caspia hates cities, yet her parents take her to Brooklyn one Summer. But finding a bundle of letters from two sisters leads her on a voyage of discovery, unravelling their riddles.
It’s been a while since a new Cornelia Funke novel and this has a perfect blend of fantasy and real life. New and old friendships are cultivated alongside the plants central to the story.