Kid’s books about fruits and vegetables

Need some suggestions on fun and educational children’s books, pertaining to the topic of fruits and vegetables? Here’s a list of eight books following the fruit and vegetable theme.

  • Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert introduces a large variety of fruits vegetables for all the letters of the alphabet.
  • The Vegetables We Eat by Gail Gibbons teaches kids all about vegetables, from how they grow to their many varieties.
  • Grow: A Family Guide to Growing Fruits and Vegetables by Ben Raskin helps families learn how to grow, care for, and harvest their own fruit and vegetable gardens.
  • Blue Potatoes, Orange Tomatoes: How to Grow a Rainbow Garden by Rosalind Creasy (Illustrations by Ruth Heller) explains how young gardeners can grow a rainbow garden with a variety of unique and colorful crops from seed to harvest.
  • Fruit Bowl by Mark Hoffman is a sweet story about Tomato wanting to join the other fruits in the fruit bowl, but they aren’t sure he belongs.
  • Fruits by Nancy Dickmann teaches children about the nutritional value of fruits and how they play an important role in a healthy diet.
  • What am I? Fruits by John Benzee contains fifteen riddles about various fruits that kids can guess and learn about.
  • Similarly, What am I? Vegetables by John Benzee asks kids to guess what the vegetables are according to the riddles and colorful illustrations.

All these books can be found by clicking on the pictures or by visiting a local bookstore.

Do you have any other fruit and vegetable book suggestions? Let me know in the comments below.

2019 Holiday Sales from Split Seed Press

Holiday shopping is upon us and books make perfect gifts. What am I? Fruits, What am I? Vegetables, and Tree Verse are on sale via my online bookstore: https://aerbook.com/store/author_john_benzee. Use coupon code FRUITCAKE to get 15% off your order. (ends 12/23/2019)

Tree Verse eBook edition is also discounted 50% at all major online retailers: https://books2read.com/u/4j1rzo

Thank you for including indie authors on your shopping list.

A 2019 Purple Dragonfly Book Award Winner

I’m excited to announce that my latest picture book, What am I? Fruits has won 1st place for the food-related category in The Purple Dragonfly Book Awards run by Story Monsters. The awards recognize and honor “books that are original, innovative and creative in both content and design” that are geared toward children. For a complete list of winners, follow this link: https://www.storymonsters.com/book-briefs/2019-purple-dragonfly-book-award-winners

June is Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month

In the United States, June is designated as National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month, which promotes healthy eating and tasty fresh and local foods. Fruits and vegetables are celebrated for their nutrition (bell peppers have more vitamin C than oranges), types and varieties (there are about 7,500 apple varieties worldwide), and cooking versatility.

Why don’t you participate this month by trying a new vegetable or fruit, growing some veggies in your home garden, or visiting a local farm market (they should be getting locally-grown produce soon). Here’s a handy link from the USDA to help you find a farm market in your area via ZIP code: https://www.ams.usda.gov/local-food-directories/farmersmarkets

Tulsa Book Review: What am I? Fruits

Tulsa Book Review gave a 5 star review to What am I? Fruits. Here’s the review in its entirety:

What a fun way for preschoolers and early graders to learn about the fruits they eat while picking up some additional language skills. Drawn upon these three dozen tinted pages are colorfully drawn fruits with their names boldly printed. Accompanying these fruity depictions on the facing pages are rhyming riddles asking the reader to guess what the fruit is. The speckled banana is claimed to be shaped like a smile that is bright yellow, and in rhythmic verse, the reader is told to remove its peel for a soft, tropical meal. Let the child guess what fruit resembles a blue colored marble, or which plant has red watery flesh, and grows on a long, green vine. Think of the citrus, so orange bright and a lover of daylight. Children will have fun mimicking the melodious words while dreaming of the colorful fruits, while their imaginative tongues sample the fruits’ delightful textures and flavors. As an educational tool, this little book provides a colorful introduction to the foods we eat, along with a nourishing supply of imaginative language.