The King Tuber Mushroom Garden™ This Nigerian mushroom (Pleurotus tuber-regium) forms a "ball" (called a sclerotium) allowing it to rest for months. To activate, simply bury in sand or gravel in the included container as pictured and mist once or twice a day. Boing! Mushrooms will sprout, forming spikes and then grow like the crazy fun-guys that they are. This mushroom kit is certain to amaze you and your family. A 70° F environment is needed. LKPTR/K $18.00  The Children's Mushroom Garden™ Housed in a reusable, clear plastic container, your child can watch Enokitake* (Flammulina populicola) mushrooms burst to life before their eyes. Each kit comes with an instruction booklet and an interactive watering calendar. (Even if you forget to water this kit regularly, it will still produce.) A 45–75° F environment is ideal. LKFP/K $18.00  *Taxonomic research has identified our strain as being Flammulina populicola, a sister species of Flammulina velutipes. The "Espresso Oyster" Mushroom Patch™ Pearl Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) are hardy and fast growers, and can thrive on a wide variety of materials, or substrates. This kit contains a 1-gallon bag of Oyster mushroom mycelium growing on sawdust (mushroom growers call this kind of material spawn), which you mix into other substrates to make mushrooms grow. We call it the "Espresso Oyster" because one of the best substrates to grow it on is coffee grounds, though it will also grow very well on newspapers, cardboard, tea bags, straw, corn cobs, nut hulls, yard waste and many others. This kit is a great science project in the making! You can conduct experiments with various environmental factors (substrate, temperature, humidity and light, to name a few) and see what kind of conditions your Oyster mushrooms prefer. You can also grow mushrooms right out of the bag if you like. Kit comes with detailed instructions. LKPOE $24.00  NEW! Invisible Lines By Mary Amato, with illustrations by Antonio Caparo. Mary Amato has made a name for herself as a gifted children's book author, whose offbeat yet compelling stories are in a class all their own. Invisible Lines is the story of Trevor Musgrove, a young kid with a lot of challenges: being raised by a single mom, living in a tough housing project just outside Washington, D.C., going to a school with lots of rich kids. But he also has some things on his side. He's a talented soccer player, he's a gifted artist, and his science teacher—a mushroom guru—teaches him that good things can come from the darkest places. 352 pages, softcover. BKIL $15.99 Fungi By Elaine Pascoe, photographs by Dwight Kuhn. Part of the series "A Kid's Guide to the Classification of Living Things", this book is a fun, colorful guide to the classification of fungi for kids grade K through 5. The diversity of the fungal kingdom is explored and sorted in ways kids can follow in this informative book. Mushrooms, yeasts, and molds all make featured appearances, along with spores, budding, gills, and hyphae. Includes a useful glossary of terms. 24 pages, softcover. BKF/EP $8.49 The Fungus That Ate My School By Arthur Dorros, illustrated by David Catrow. A group of children returns to school after a rainy spring vacation to find that a slimy green, yellow and purple fuzz is covering everything, even the principal's office. It's a fungus! But where did it come from, and how can they get rid of it? Of his book author Arthur Dorros writes, "In the part of the country where I live, the Pacific Northwest, the conditions are often right for fungi to grow. A fungus got my shoe, another started eating its way through my clothes, and there's a fungus in our basement—my son has been growing it. (That one is contained, though it's eaten its way through a metal bowl.) Fungi can take many forms, from wispy and cotton-like to slimy, slithery masses. With moisture and a little something for nutrition, a fungus can get growing. Fungus can be serious business. But not in this book. This is a fungus like neither you, nor I, has ever seen before." 11.3 x 8.9 inches, 32 pages, softcover. BKFAMS $5.99   Bamboo & Friends: The Mushroom Ring By Felicia Law. Illustrations by Claire Philpott, Karen Radford and Xact Studio. Bamboo has been dreaming about fairies. Beak says fairies aren't real—they're make-believe. But when the friends find a tiny ring of mushrooms growing in the forest, they wonder how it got there. Beak gives Bamboo and Velvet a much-needed lesson in nature study. Part of the Bamboo & Friends series, this entrancing storybook is designed for children pre-K through second grade, with beautiful full-color illustrations. 10.1 x 10.1 inches, 24 pages, hardcover. BKTMR $19.95 The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet In print since the 1950's, this fascinating and engaging book is back with a new design by illustrator Kevin Hawkes. Don't miss the adventures of Chuck and David, two boys inspired by a mystery man to build a spaceship and travel to the alien planet Basidium to help the Mushroom People. This book is a timeless classic that is sure to be read over and over again. BKWFMP $5.99  Mushrooms of the World Coloring Book By Jeanette Bowers. Featuring 39 ready-to-color, botanically accurate full-page illustrations, this innovative coloring book provides detailed captions including scientific and common names, countries of origin, habitat, and flavor (of edible mushrooms). Full-color reproductions of the black-and-white illustrations are included inside the front and back covers of the book. The text is written by renowned mycologist David Arora, introducing the reader to 92 mushroom species from around the world. A beautiful and unique coloring book for folks of all ages! 8.25 x 10.75 inches, 48 pages, softcover. BKMWCB $3.95  Fungi by Mary Kay Carson. The most recent publication in the Ranger Rick® Science Program in partnership with the National Wildlife Federation®, this booklet is an excellent introduction to the fascinating world of fungi. Topics include the mushroom life cycle, the science of mycology, and Fungal Friends and Foes. Full of beautiful full-color photographs, with a helpful glossary of mycological terms. 8 1/2 x 11 inches, 20 pages, softcover. BKF/MC $7.95

Some Unusual & Interesting Facts About Mushrooms

1. Mushrooms are fungi. Fungi are as uniquely different from plants as plants are from animals. In fact, fungi and animals are now in the same super-kingdom, Opisthokonta.

2. Fungi recycle plants after they die and transform them into rich soil. If not for mushrooms and fungi, the Earth would be buried in several feet of debris and life on the planet would soon disappear.

3. The oldest mushroom found in amber is from 90 million years ago—a Cordyceps. Scientists recently discovered a fossil first uncovered in 1859 and named Prototaxites, dating back more than 420 million years, a time when the tallest plants were around 2 feet tall. Prototaxites was 3 feet tall laying down, but if standing was nearly 30 feet high. In either case it would be the tallest organism on land...and it was a giant fungus!

4. Some of the oldest living mushroom colonies are fairy rings growing around the famous Stonehenge ruins in England. The rings are so large that they can best be seen from airplanes.

5. Some mushrooms produce compounds that fight cancer! This was discovered when scientists in Japan found that a community had unusually low cancer rates. The scientists discovered that the members of the community grew and ate many Enokitake mushrooms!

6. You can make beautiful colors by boiling wild mushrooms and dipping cloth in the resulting broth. The books Mushrooms for Dyes, Paper, Pigments & Myco-Stix™ and The Rainbow Beneath My Feet tell you how to make dyes with mushrooms (get your parents to help you).

7. Many mushrooms grow towards light, following the sun just like plant. Unlike with plants, scientists do not yet know how mushrooms use sunlight; only that they do.

8. The spores of mushrooms are made of chitin, the hardest naturally-made substance on Earth. Some scientists suspect that mushroom spores are capable of space travel; a few even believe that some fungi found on Earth originally came from outer space! (Others believe that people who think this must be from outer space themselves.)

9. Under the right conditions, some mushrooms' spores can sit dormant for decades or even a century, and still grow!

10. Mushrooms are useful not only as food and medicine; some are also being used in bioremediation, to absorb and digest dangerous substances like oil, pesticides and industrial waste, in places where they threaten the environment.

The world of fungi holds many secrets yet to be discovered. Perhaps you will help to unveil the many mysteries of mushrooms!