Here are 82 books that Astro Pea fans have personally recommended if you like
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Katherine Pryor is the award-winning author of several picture books about food and gardens. In addition to writing, she has worked to create better food choices at institutions, corporations, and food banks. She gardens with her young twins at their home on an island in northwest Washington.
When former basketball star Will Allen notices a problem in his community—too many abandoned lots and not enough fresh food—he sees opportunity. This biography tells the story of Will Allen’s inspirational journey to create urban farms that heal both the land and the people harvesting and eating the bounty. Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table is the perfect book to talk to kids about how there is often more than one way to solve a problem and get them excited about growing their own fresh food. Plus, any picture book that includes worms is a picture book I want to read with my kids—and worms play a starring role in Will Allen’s vision.
Will Allen is no ordinary farmer. A former basketball star, he's as tall as his truck, and he can hold a cabbage--or a basketball--in one hand. But what is most special about Farmer Will is that he can see what others can't see. When he looked at an abandoned city lot in Milwaukee he saw a huge table, big enough to feed the whole world.
No space, no problem. Poor soil, there's a solution. Need help, found it. Farmer Will is a genius in solving problems. In 2008, the MacArthur Foundation named him one for his innovative urban farming methods,…
Katherine Pryor is the award-winning author of several picture books about food and gardens. In addition to writing, she has worked to create better food choices at institutions, corporations, and food banks. She gardens with her young twins at their home on an island in northwest Washington.
A young girl wishes her family’s garden looked as pretty as their neighbors’ gardens—bursting with flowers and fragrance rather than the “ugly vegetables” her mom insists on growing. Her mom assures her their garden is worth waiting for, and that these vegetables will be better than flowers. At harvest time, she makes a soup that brings the neighborhood together. Based on events from author/illustrator Grace Lin’s own childhood, The Ugly Vegetables is a story about how food rooted in culture can pass history and identity down through generations, and the importance of growing food that tastes like home.
In this charming story about celebrating differences a Chinese-American girl wishes for a garden of bright flowers instead of one full of bumpy, ugly, vegetables.
The neighbors' gardens look so much prettier and so much more inviting to the young gardener than the garden of "black-purple-green vines, fuzzy wrinkled leaves, prickly stems, and a few little yellow flowers" that she and her mother grow. Nevertheless, mother assures her that "these are better than flowers." Come harvest time, everyone agrees as those ugly Chinese vegetables become the tastiest, most aromatic soup they have ever known. As the neighborhood comes together to…
Katherine Pryor is the award-winning author of several picture books about food and gardens. In addition to writing, she has worked to create better food choices at institutions, corporations, and food banks. She gardens with her young twins at their home on an island in northwest Washington.
My kids absolutely loved this bright, charming book that supports counting and colors as well as portraying vegetables in an irresistible light. A rainbow of vegetables is presented, culminating in a recipe at the back for a vegetable soup. The language is sparse, but we had fun reading this aloud again and again. The recipe for Every Color Soup was the first meal my four-year-old son and I created together where he was an equal participant in the cooking, and he ate every bite!
Purple, yellow, orange, and red. Just the right mix of colored vegetables make a delicious soup in this tasty introduction to colors, counting, and veggies.
All you need is a pot, a spoon, an adult helper, and vegetables of many colors to make a very special soup—Every Color Soup! Learn colors and vegetable names in this bright and colorful picture book with minimal text perfect for the beginning reader. Jorey Hurley’s bright, graphic art and simple text make this vibrant book a perfect read-aloud for budding cooks and their families. This lively picture book also comes with a recipe!
Katherine Pryor is the award-winning author of several picture books about food and gardens. In addition to writing, she has worked to create better food choices at institutions, corporations, and food banks. She gardens with her young twins at their home on an island in northwest Washington.
In a list about vegetables, I couldn’t resist including one book about fruit, simply because I love it so much. Various fruits take turns being celebrated in rhyme, but as one increasingly gloomy orange realizes, it cannot be included, because, well, it’s in the title. This is a book parents love every bit as much as the kids, and reading it aloud 10,000 times just made me love it more. It will make any meal or snack involving fruit more fun. (Our family still quotes a particularly memorable line every time we eat kiwi.) There are some references that go over kids’ heads, but the book is so funny and well-written that mine never cared. Have fun, and plan on stocking the fruit bowl.
A perfect laugh-out-loud, read-aloud from New York Times bestselling author Adam Rex!
We all know nothing rhymes with orange. But how does that make Orange feel? Well, left out! When a parade of fruit gets together to sing a song about how wonderful they are-and the song happens to rhyme-Orange can't help but feel like it's impossible for him to ever fit in. But when one particularly intuitive Apple notices how Orange is feeling, the entire English language begins to become a bit more inclusive.
Beloved author-illustrator Adam Rex has created a hilarious yet poignant parable about feeling left out,…
I’ve loved gardening ever since I was five years old, when I followed my grandmother around her yard as she watered her dinner plate-sized dahlias. As a college student, I rode a bus to school each day and read every gardening book and magazine I could get my hands on. After I graduated with a degree in Journalism, I realized I wanted to write about flowers and veggies and show other people how beautiful and bountiful a garden could be. My first book, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds, led to a wonderful speaking experience in Orlando at Epcot’s International Flower and Garden Festival, and to contracts for two more books in the spiritual living genre.
Have you ever wished you could grow those nutritious, meaty peas and beans your granddaddy used to grow? Some had cool names, like Rattlesnake Beans, Big Red Ripper, or Blue Podded Shelling. They were probably heirloom varieties, plants that have been around for 50 years or more. While heirlooms are harder to find than they used to be, and nurseries and garden centers don’t often sell them as young plants, you can still grow these varieties from seeds (tip: look for them online or search for “seed swaps” in your area). Weaver is an organic gardener and food historian who discusses the old-timey veggies our forebears ate and where their seeds came from. You’ll want to plant your own kitchen garden with many of the varieties he covers.
"This book is sure to be a modern classic and is one of the most important books on gardening in the current century." —Jere Gettle, founder, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Heirloom Vegetable Gardening has always been a book for gardeners and cooks interested in unique flavors, colors, and history in their produce. This updated edition has been improved throughout with growing zones, advice, and new plant entries. Line art has been replaced with lush, full-color photography. Yet at the core, this book delivers on the same promise it made two decades ago: It’s a comprehensive guide based on meticulous first-person…
Since 1979 the life of soil and plants, and how they link to our own lives and health, has fascinated me. In the 1980s I was a maverick because as an organic market gardener, my work was mostly seen as irrelevant to society, producing food that was expensive and for only a few people. That changed from 1988 when the BBC filmed my garden, and green consciousness developed. Since then I have gone from being zero to hero and especially with regard to soil because since 1982 I've been gardening with the no dig method. My experience allows me to direct you towards these gems, which I'm sure you will find useful and enjoyable.
I worked with Sue in the 1980s and came to appreciate her dedication to organic gardening and understanding plants. We then lost touch and it was a great pleasure to come across this book 15 years ago. Although it's over 30 years old, nature does not change and she gives beautiful clear descriptions of how to go about saving seeds from all different types of vegetables. It's neither straightforward nor is it difficult, and you are in good hands with Sue who will help you to succeed in this vital task, more valuable now than ever before. We all need the seeds of health!
The latest strains of tomato may look perfect, but they often have thick skins and tasteless flesh. Dwarf peas may be the easiest to grow commercially, but many gardeners still grow attractive six-foot types that taste "like peas used to taste." Whatever the benefits of modern hybrids, old varieties still have much to offer, and they are becoming hard to find. Seed saving is a surprisingly simple and hugely satisfying way to propogate your favorite varieties. In this book you will find easy-to-follow, crop by crop guidelines to help you save your own seed. Relevant to the beginner as well…
I’ve loved gardening ever since I was five years old, when I followed my grandmother around her yard as she watered her dinner plate-sized dahlias. As a college student, I rode a bus to school each day and read every gardening book and magazine I could get my hands on. After I graduated with a degree in Journalism, I realized I wanted to write about flowers and veggies and show other people how beautiful and bountiful a garden could be. My first book, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds, led to a wonderful speaking experience in Orlando at Epcot’s International Flower and Garden Festival, and to contracts for two more books in the spiritual living genre.
This is a guide to saving and growing 160 different vegetables, and you must know how to harvest, save, and store their seeds if you want to plant some of the harder-to-find varieties. Co-author Kent Whealy was one of the founders of Iowa-based Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit organization and seed bank that has a collection of over 20,000 varieties of heirloom flower, vegetable, fruit, berry, grain, and herb seeds. He and his former wife, Diane Ott Whealy, are credited with sparking the heirloom seed movement in the 1970s.
Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds.Seed to Seed is widely acknowledged as the best guide available for home gardeners to learn effective ways to produce and store seeds on a small scale. The author has grown seed crops of every vegetable featured in the book,…
I’m an author, playwright, nonprofit strategist, and mother to two small children–the list goes on and on, and it's enough to work up an appetite. Since three of my favorite things in the world are 1) my kids, 2) stories, and 3) food, this reading roundup is near and dear to my heart. I wrote my picture book, Do Not Eat This Book!, because I believe food is a delicious entryway for exploring identity, sharing, caring, culture, and more, and the books in this list exemplify the sweet power of a good food-themed picture book.
We’re starting and ending with something silly but special. This book is about a food… who is picky about food!
In the Pea household, candy is yucky, and VEGETABLES are the delicious treat, which always makes my littles giggle. If you have picky eaters in your household, this book is a fun way to talk about how different people (or pea-ple!) have different tastes, but it’s important to eat a variety of foods. And it’s great to laugh while doing so!
Ten years ago, Amy Krouse Rosenthal burst into children's books with Little Pea, a book destined to become a classic. Her witty text about a little pea who won't eat his sweets combined with the whimsical yet warm hearted art by Jen Corace create a go-to baby gift, a hilarious read-aloud and the perfect intervention for picky eaters.
When offered a plot at the community garden, I thought it would be fun to invite other families to learn to grow food together. As a science teacher, I knew that for toddlers, digging in the dirt and growing plants for food could plant seeds for a life-long love of exploring nature, hands-on science inquiry, environmental stewardship, and joy in healthy eating. As we gardened, I noticed what questions children and their parents had, and how we found the answers together. I wrote the picture book How to Say Hello to A Worm: A First Guide to Outside to inspire more kids and their parents to get their hands dirty.
When I was very small, planting peas in the garden with my grandfather, I felt like a sorcerer's apprentice being initiated into a realm of magic. Carron Brown'sSecrets of the Vegetable Garden brings me back to that age of wonder by setting up mysteries to solve. Holding pages up to the sunlight reveals the answers to mysteries and riddles, and shows us what is secretly happening: potatoes growing under the earth, or seeds forming inside a fruit.
What is hidden in the world around us? For ages 3 and up, the uniquely designed Shine-A-Light series of books uncovers the facts behind a diverse range of places and topics through hidden images that are revealed by light. First, view a full-colour scene and read about what is pictured - but what else is there? Shine a torch behind the page, or hold it up to the light, to reveal what is hidden. Turn the page to read fun facts about the hidden image in black and white. A world of surprises awaits!
I’ve loved gardening ever since I was five years old, when I followed my grandmother around her yard as she watered her dinner plate-sized dahlias. As a college student, I rode a bus to school each day and read every gardening book and magazine I could get my hands on. After I graduated with a degree in Journalism, I realized I wanted to write about flowers and veggies and show other people how beautiful and bountiful a garden could be. My first book, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds, led to a wonderful speaking experience in Orlando at Epcot’s International Flower and Garden Festival, and to contracts for two more books in the spiritual living genre.
There’s one thing most gardeners agree on: you simply can’t beat the taste of a homegrown tomato. Supermarket tomatoes have been bred to withstand shipping and stacking, so they look like perfect, red globes, but unfortunately, many have lost their old-fashioned flavor along the way. Author Craig LeHoullier is a tomato connoisseur who tells you how to grow over 200 varieties, from planting to harvesting and saving their seeds for another season. The photos in this beautifully illustrated book will make your mouth water—just like the tomatoes he recommends.
This book contains everything a tomato-growing enthusiast needs to know about growing over 200 varieties of tomatoes - how to sow seeds, plant, cultivate, and collect seeds. It also offers a comprehensive guide to pests and diseases of tomatoes. No other book offers such a detailed look at the specifics of growing tomatoes, from the point of view of a true expert, with beautiful photographs and tomato profiles throughout.
