The Bad Seed by Jory John

Hey, Story Seekers!

We've got a bad seed today.

Not a slightly naughty seed.

Not a seed who forgot to say thank you once.

A baaaaaaaaaad seed.

At least that's what he keeps telling everybody.

The Bad Seed, written by Jory John and illustrated by Pete Oswald, came out in 2017 and started the Food Group series. Our main character is a sunflower seed with bad manners, a bad attitude, and a reputation that gets into the room before he does.

He cuts in line. He lies. He's late. He doesn't listen.

And that's before we find out what happened to him.

Readit is already suspicious of the whole "bad seed" label. His position is that anybody who nearly gets eaten should be allowed at least one terrible week.

Fair point.

Book Breakdown

The Bad Seed has built himself a reputation.

Everybody knows him.

Everybody talks about him.

And he's happy to supply the evidence. He's always late. He lies often. He stares and glares and never listens. He cuts in line all the time. He never washes his hands or his feet. And, as the book puts it, he does other things too bad to list.

Pete Oswald has a lot of fun with this part.

The Bad Seed's face can fill a page, and that face is doing work. Narrowed eyes, a permanent scowl, two little stick legs. Around him is a whole city of other seeds and nuts and kernels reacting to whatever he's doing. Peanuts. Coconuts. Corn. Look past him on any page and somebody is having an opinion.

Then Jory John changes the question.

Instead of asking, "How bad is this guy?"

We start asking, "How did he get this way?"

Turns out the Bad Seed wasn't always bad.

He lived happily with his sunflower family until harvest came. The seeds were collected, bagged as snack food, and our guy came within inches of being eaten. He got out. But something in him didn't come back.

Suddenly the joke has a bruise under it.

That's an interesting move, because John doesn't use the backstory as a free pass. He gives us a reason to understand the Bad Seed without pretending cutting in line has become charming.

Eventually the seed gets tired of being the Bad Seed.

So he decides to try something different.

Try is the important word.

He doesn't wake up the next morning transformed into Captain Wonderful. He still makes mistakes. He still has bad days. Sometimes he's late.

But sometimes he isn't.

Sometimes he says thank you.

Sometimes he does something good simply because he can.

That's a much better ending than turning him instantly perfect.

Oswald's pictures help sell the change, because he doesn't redesign the character to signal it. Same little sunflower seed. Same shape. Same face. Same history.

Different choices.

For teachers and librarians: Lexile AD390L · Guided Reading Level J · DRA 16-18 · ATOS 2.0 · 476 words · AR quiz 190573, 0.5 points · grades PreK to 3, ages 4 to 8. Harper, August 29, 2017. Forty pages, and the first of the Food Group books.

Jungle Jimmy's Journal

There's a line adults use around kids that deserves a little care.

"He's a bad kid."

That's different from saying a kid did something bad.

Children hear labels.

And this seed has heard his enough times that he's started introducing himself with it.

That's the part of this book I keep coming back to.

The Bad Seed isn't pretending his behavior is wonderful. He knows what he does. Everybody else knows too. But John eventually gives him enough room to decide that what he's done doesn't have to become who he is forever.

I like that.

I also like that the book doesn't make improvement look suspiciously easy.

When you've spent a long time behaving one way, deciding to change doesn't mean your old habits pack their bags and leave by Tuesday.

The seed tries.

Sometimes he gets it right.

Sometimes he doesn't.

That's a useful thing for kids to see, because "be good from now on" is a mighty big assignment. "Try something better this time" is a job you can actually start.

From a read-aloud standpoint, John gives you one obvious gift.

That "baaaaaaaaaad."

You can't throw that word away.

Stretch it.

Make the room wait for it.

Once kids know it's coming, they'll want it with you.

Oswald gives the adult reader another advantage. While the words tell us how awful this seed thinks he is, the pictures let kids watch everybody around him. Those reactions make the early pages funnier than a list of bad behavior has any right to be.

Then the book gets quieter when his past arrives.

I'd let it.

You don't have to perform every inch of a picture book at the same volume. Sometimes the best thing you can do is notice when the story has changed gears and go with it.

One criticism, and it isn't only mine. The decision to change arrives fast. I wanted another beat there.

But I don't think it sinks the book.

The messy improvement afterward is what saves it.

Readit's Review

First, I don't think he's THAT bad.

He cuts in line, which is bad.

He lies about dumb stuff, which is also bad, because if you're going to lie, why lie about something nobody cares about?

Actually, don't lie.

Forget that.

But then you find out he almost got EATEN.

Nobody told me this was going to happen.

He's sitting in a bag and then giant teeth are coming at him.

I would have problems too.

I like that he doesn't turn into the Good Seed at the end and start smiling at everybody all day. That would be weird.

He still messes up.

He just tries not to mess up as much.

Also, I like all the other food people in the pictures.

If I lived there, I would want to be a pistachio.

I don't know why.

They have a good shell.

What Others Think

This seed has found a very large audience. Goodreads shows 4.31 out of 5 from more than 41,000 ratings, with about 3,450 written reviews.

Reviewer Jon Nakapalau keeps it short: "Loved this book! A bad seed decides to change after he comes to the realization that all..." Reader Michelle Olson is shorter still: "Oh so very cute and funny!" And Lisa, writing as Remarkablylisa, gets at something the cheerful summaries miss: "Kind of a dark book LOL."

Not wrong, either. There is a near-death experience in this picture book.

Kirkus caught both halves of it. On the fun: "Young readers (and some older ones as well) will chuckle at the list of misdeeds, then perhaps wonder whether they're guilty of such baaaaaaaaaaad behavior themselves." On Oswald: the illustrations depict "the world around him hilariously reacting to his misbehavior," using close-ups, "sometimes extreme ones," for comic effect. Publishers Weekly pinned down the setting that makes those background jokes work, calling it "a metropolis populated by seeds that include peanuts, coconuts, and corn kernels."

The criticism is worth taking seriously, and it isn't only the trade reviewers making it. Kirkus put it this way: "The change may seem abrupt, although there is a sense that being good takes time." Ordinary readers landed in the same spot without being prompted. Cheryl wrote that "there's something missing in that the seed just happens to decide" to change. Kaethe went further: "It lost its witty tone when the bad seed reformed."

And there's a sharper objection from Cynthia, who takes issue with the premise itself: "I don't like that the book called him a bad seed."

Which, honestly, is the argument the book is having with itself.

For me it recovers, because the seed isn't magically fixed afterward.

Trying counts.

Belly Laugh Scale

3 out of 5: Solid Chuckles

The Bad Seed is funny, but comedy isn't running the entire show.

The long "baaaaaaaaaad" is made for a read-aloud. His list of lousy habits gives kids plenty to recognize and laugh at. Oswald's close-ups and the reactions of everybody around him keep the pictures funny even while our narrator is taking his own badness very seriously.

Then the story deliberately moves somewhere more thoughtful.

So, 3.

Solid Chuckles.

And one very long vowel.

Final Explorer Verdict

I'd recommend The Bad Seed most strongly for ages 4 to 8. Especially kids who've gotten stuck with a reputation, kids working on impulse control, and classrooms talking about choices without wanting to sort everybody into good kids and bad kids.

There's plenty here for a conversation after the last page.

Was he really a bad seed?

Did having a reason for his behavior make the behavior okay?

If he messes up tomorrow, does that mean he failed?

Those are pretty good questions for a story about a sunflower seed with legs.

And don't miss Pete Oswald's contribution. The faces, the background characters, and those enormous close-ups keep the book playful while Jory John sneaks into heavier territory.

The Bad Seed isn't really a story about becoming good.

It's about deciding that your worst behavior doesn't get to name you forever.

That's better.

If you want the other side of this coin, John and Oswald followed it with The Good Egg, about a character with the opposite problem: he's so busy being good for everybody else that his shell starts to crack. We reviewed that one too. Read them back to back sometime. They're arguing with each other.

Keep exploring, Story Seekers!

Jungle Jimmy & Readit