Planted with Love: Growing into a Family

Maria Riley reviews Planted with Love: Growing into a Family, a beautiful picture book for starting conversations around foster children. 

Planted with Love: Growing into a Family

By Natasha Tripplett; illustrated by Adriana Predoi

Publisher: WaterBrook

National Foster Care Month  

May is National Foster Care month, which makes it the perfect time to add Planted with Love: Growing into a Family by Natasha Tripplett and illustrated by Adriana Predoi to your home library. This beautifully illustrated picture book is written for foster families, but it’s also a perfect introduction to foster care for families without foster care experience.  

The simple book conveys a huge message: that all children, when they are nurtured and loved, will bloom just like flowers in a garden. Lamar, a foster child who has been in seven homes in the past three years, comes to live with a new foster mom. She invites Lamar to join her in the garden where she plants, weeds, waters, and waits for the flowers to bloom. She explains the difference between perennials and annuals, and Lamar gets upset. He sees himself as an annual who is replanted over and over, and he destroys the garden. 

A Story of Flowers and Love  

His foster mom and he have a touching moment where she explains, “You are a perennial. You are wanted. You are planted. You are loved.” Lamar is able to overcome his fear of abandonment and feel settled and safe in his new home. At the end of the book, Lamar is pictured growing up in this home, graduating, and eventually having a family of his own.  

This touching book covers the sometimes-intimidating topic of foster care and what it means for a child to have his life disrupted and move to new homes many times. As a foster and adoptive mom, I loved the message and simple language that all children can understand. 

One Missing Element  

As a Catholic mom, I noticed that the book omits any mention of God. For my own foster and adopted children, speaking about their identity as children of God regardless of their past is an integral part of understanding and accepting the challenges of foster care. The book also represents a single foster mother as Lamar’s only parent, which may be the reality for some foster families, but obviously not all.  

Even though the book doesn’t have explicitly Catholic themes, I enjoyed reading it to my children. If you feel called to learn more about foster care during National Foster Care month, read Planted with Love and begin having conversations with your children about foster care. 

Is this a book you'd like to read? Share your thoughts with the Catholic Mom community! You'll find the comment box below the author's bio and list of recommended articles.

Copyright 2025 Maria Riley
Images: (top) Canva; interior image copyright 2025 WaterBrook, all rights reserved.