The Flower by John Light

This is a story about a boy who lives in a concrete world, then one day he's reading a book and he sees a picture of a flower. He's amazed by the picture and he ends up at the tiny pedlar shop where he sees a picture of a flower and asks the man about it. The boy is told that this is a packet of seeds, so the boy buys it and follows the directions on the back. Soon a sprout comes up out of the pot he's planted the seeds in and the boy gets excited. In a stroke of bad luck however, the plant gets sucked up some tube in his house and disappears. He's really sad about losing his plant and goes outside to see what happened to it. He's surprised to find that the flowers had grown all over some hay stacks.

It's a cute story about bringing beauty into the world. The world around the boy has something of a dark atmosphere, and it's countered with the search and desire for flowers.