How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"My mom's a master naturopath."
"What's that?"
"It's someone who basically makes all their medicine out of herbs. She even grows a bunch of her own stuff." (3.25-27)
Laurel's mom has clearly spent a lot of time acquiring the knowledge to become a master naturopath, especially since she's practicing professionally. We're thinking it takes a combination of practical knowledge that you gain through experience, book learning, and maybe even some school. Anyway, between Laurel's mom being a naturopath and Laurel's dad being a bookworm, we're guessing that this is a family that really values knowledge.
Quote #2
"These are definitely plant cells, Laurel," David said, squinting at his microscope.
"Are you sure?" Laurel asked, taking her turn looking at the cells she had swabbed from the inside of her cheek. But even she recognized the thick-walled, square cells that dotted the brightly lit slide. (10.42-43)
It's kind of a running gag through the book that Laurel is just awful at biology. David must be rubbing off on her, though, since he's so awesome at biology and they're spending all this time together. If even she only has the basic biology knowledge needed to ID her own cells as plant cells, clearly she's not doing too badly on that front.
Quote #3
Laurel hadn't found a single source that talked about faeries being anything like she was. The closest she'd found were dryads—wood spirits—and they were just the spirits of trees. (11.138)
Another running gag in the book is just how ignorant humans are about faerie life, since they apparently always get the facts wrong. Since Laurel knows she is a plant (or something very like a plant), she tries to find similar accounts of faeries in stories and folklore, but pretty much fails except for learning about dryads. And we think dryads are cool and all, but since they're spirits and Laurel is very much a person in a body, it's not very helpful.