Fans pick 100 books like Hungry Roscoe

By David J. Plant,

Here are 100 books that Hungry Roscoe fans have personally recommended if you like Hungry Roscoe. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Thank You, Omu!

Timothy Kleyn Author Of Grilled Cheese? Yes, Please!

From my list on food-centered picture books.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, my family was a meat and potatoes family. The food was good but it was never really about the food. It was about eating together. When I got older, I ventured beyond the world of meat and potatoes, made more friends to eat with, and learned more and more to enjoy the little things in life. My two books are about food but also not really. They're community books. Family books. Adventure books. Same thing with the 5 books on my list. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Timothy's book list on food-centered picture books

Timothy Kleyn Why did Timothy love this book?

Ah! This book is so rich and wonderful! The illustrations are unique, textured, impactful, and balanced. The story is warm and fun, and I appreciate how it turns it around with the people sharing with Omu at the end.

The illustrations tell me, "Hey, this is a really good book!" and they do not lie. It deserves the awards it won. I just love how the story and illustrations are so simple yet so full. It's a classic.

By Oge Mora,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Thank You, Omu! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

A generous woman is rewarded by her community in this remarkable author-illustrator debut that's perfect for the Thanksgiving season, perfect for fans of Last Stop on Market Street.

Everyone in the neighborhood dreams of a taste of Omu's delicious stew! One by one, they follow their noses toward the scrumptious scent. And one by one, Omu offers a portion of her meal. Soon the pot is empty. Has she been so generous that she has nothing left for herself?

Debut author-illustrator Oge Mora brings a heartwarming story of sharing and community to life in colorful cut-paper designs as luscious as…


Book cover of Stay for Dinner

Timothy Kleyn Author Of Grilled Cheese? Yes, Please!

From my list on food-centered picture books.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, my family was a meat and potatoes family. The food was good but it was never really about the food. It was about eating together. When I got older, I ventured beyond the world of meat and potatoes, made more friends to eat with, and learned more and more to enjoy the little things in life. My two books are about food but also not really. They're community books. Family books. Adventure books. Same thing with the 5 books on my list. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Timothy's book list on food-centered picture books

Timothy Kleyn Why did Timothy love this book?

This book has a beautiful message and beautiful illustrations. The words and colors are as warm as the meals the girl has with friends. The book tackles the tough subject of a girl feeling self-conscious about her family's food and culture, yet it's handled so smartly.

The whole book is just warm and beautiful. I find it inspirational to me as both an author and illustrator.

By Sandhya Parappukkaran, Michelle Pereira (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stay for Dinner as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Stay for Dinner is a powerful story that celebrates culture and connection through food, from the creators of The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name, winner of the 2022 Children's Book Council of Australia's Award for New Illustrator.

Reshma loves dinnertime with her family. Her family eat with their hands - not just finger food type-eating, but hands-on squishy eating. When she's invited to stay for dinner at her friends' places, she finds out that they all eat in different ways. Some go ting ting with their cutlery, and others go click clack with their chopsticks. So what will…


Book cover of My Love for You Is Always

Timothy Kleyn Author Of Grilled Cheese? Yes, Please!

From my list on food-centered picture books.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, my family was a meat and potatoes family. The food was good but it was never really about the food. It was about eating together. When I got older, I ventured beyond the world of meat and potatoes, made more friends to eat with, and learned more and more to enjoy the little things in life. My two books are about food but also not really. They're community books. Family books. Adventure books. Same thing with the 5 books on my list. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Timothy's book list on food-centered picture books

Timothy Kleyn Why did Timothy love this book?

My Love For You Is Always feels like a hug. I love how it explains a parent's love toward their child using food. It's smart, simple, and satisfying.

I can imagine reading it to my daughter for bedtime. Sometimes I just want to express to my daughter Lucie how much I love her, and I feel like this book would be a fun way of doing that. Using the food theme was a good choice by the author. I think it's a great little book.

By Gillian Sze, Michelle Lee (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked My Love for You Is Always as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

Warm like tea? Sweeter than red dates? A mother shares her love for her child as the two prepare a delicious meal together--perfect for fans of Guess How Much I Love You, Wherever You Are My Love Will Find You, and Mama, Do You Love Me?

What is love? a child wonders. What does it feel like, smell like, taste like? How does it move? How long does it last?

And as she prepares a traditional Chinese meal for her family, the child's mother replies: her love for him is rosy as wolfberries, warm like tea, sweeter than the red…


Book cover of These Olive Trees

Timothy Kleyn Author Of Grilled Cheese? Yes, Please!

From my list on food-centered picture books.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, my family was a meat and potatoes family. The food was good but it was never really about the food. It was about eating together. When I got older, I ventured beyond the world of meat and potatoes, made more friends to eat with, and learned more and more to enjoy the little things in life. My two books are about food but also not really. They're community books. Family books. Adventure books. Same thing with the 5 books on my list. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Timothy's book list on food-centered picture books

Timothy Kleyn Why did Timothy love this book?

This is a powerful and beautiful book that captures the strength and culture of the Palestinian people. Some books feel like they must exist, and this is one of them.

I feel like food is such a great theme because you can really tackle heavy or tough subjects with it. This book does a good job of not sugarcoating that heaviness but being real about it and presenting it by using a focus of the olive trees and what that means to Palestinians. It takes skill to do that.

I really appreciate this book and it should be in every home.

By Aya Ghanameh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked These Olive Trees as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 3, 4, and 5.

What is this book about?

The story of a Palestinian family’s ties to the land, and how one young girl finds a way to care for her home, even as she says goodbye.

It’s 1967 in Nablus, Palestine.

Oraib loves the olive trees that grow outside the refugee camp where she lives. Each harvest, she and her mama pick the small fruits and she eagerly stomp stomp stomps on them to release their golden oil. Olives have always tied her family to the land, as Oraib learns from the stories Mama tells of a home before war.

But war has come to their door once…


Book cover of The Racc Pack

Caitlin Rose Boyle Author Of Frankie and the Beastly Bog Song

From my list on creepy creature comics and picture books for kids.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in rural Southern Maryland, watching the bats wheel overhead at night. There were bugs under every rock, snakes winding their way through the small creek at the bottom of our backyard, and frogs that would suddenly jump up onto the glass window in the laundry room and scare the ever-living daylights out of you. I kept pet rats and caught jars full of fireflies. I live in a city now, on the opposite end of the continent, but my heart lives back home in the woods. This list is for the kids & kids at heart who love the creepy critters, the creechies who get a bad rap. 

Caitlin's book list on creepy creature comics and picture books for kids

Caitlin Rose Boyle Why did Caitlin love this book?

As an animal lover who’s also lived in cities for half my life, I can’t help but love even the critters that typically get the “pest” label. This book’s author and artist are clearly on my side with this charming graphic novel. It’s a book about anthropomorphic raccoons, but it tackles some pretty wonderful social topics—in a quest to dive the perfect dumpster, the characters go up against the specter of corporate food waste.

While a topic like that might sound like a lot for a kid, the book is incredibly playful. I love any book that loves a raccoon, but they definitely get extra points for being anti-capitalist raccoons. I’d read this one with any kid who loves a pop-punk attitude—just keep some snacks on hand for when the critters finally get their garbage. Gardner makes it look tasty!

By Stephanie Cooke, Whitney Gardner (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Racc Pack as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

Live life in the trash lane with this first entry in a hilarious middle grade graphic novel series about a family of sneaky raccoons from graphic novel superstars Stephanie Cooke and Whitney Gardner!

Meet the Bins family, a trio of raccoons in the risky business of dumpster diving for all their needs. With Dusty's brains, ReRe's muscle, and Scraps's gadgets (please don't tell him he's almost definitely an opossum), the Binses are determined to leave no garbage bin unturned in their pursuit of the tastiest, most delicious trash they can find.

When the family discovers a new upscale grocery store…


Book cover of The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South

Charles Reagan Wilson Author Of The Southern Way of Life: Meanings of Culture and Civilization in the American South

From my list on savoring Southern foods.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a retired professor who wrote about and taught about the American South for almost four decades. I directed a research center focused on the South, and I helped found an institute dedicated to the study of Southern food. The South’s creative traditions in music and literature are well known, and its foodways are now recognized as a distinct American cuisine that represents the region’s innovations in culture. Through reading about southern food, readers can explore the traditions of eating and cooking in the region, and the creative contributions of ethnic groups with national and global sources. I've chosen books that give flavor to thinking about the South as a distinct place in the imagination.

Charles' book list on savoring Southern foods

Charles Reagan Wilson Why did Charles love this book?

This book is a people’s history of the modern south, told through what people in the region have cooked and eaten. 

Edge is my former student who became the founding director of the Southern Food Alliance and the author of more than a dozen books on food.

He tells a story of what the modern South inherited in terms of cooking ingredients, techniques, and traditions, and he shows the central role that cooks and waiters served in the civil rights movement. He is particularly adept at sketching profiles of southern food leaders from Paul Prudhomme to Colonel Sanders.

The book is perhaps best in showing the changes in the southern food scene over the last three centuries so that now southern food has become a shared culinary language for the nation.   

By John T. Edge,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Potlikker Papers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“The one food book you must read this year."
—Southern Living 

One of Christopher Kimball’s Six Favorite Books About Food

A people’s history that reveals how Southerners shaped American culinary identity and how race relations impacted Southern food culture over six revolutionary decades

Like great provincial dishes around the world, potlikker is a salvage food. During the antebellum era, slave owners ate the greens from the pot and set aside the leftover potlikker broth for the enslaved, unaware that the broth, not the greens, was nutrient rich. After slavery, potlikker sustained the working poor, both black and white. In the…


Book cover of What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat? Diet in Biblical Times

Oded Borowski Author Of Daily Life in Biblical Times

From my list on life in biblical times.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an archaeologist for over 50 years, I specialized in Household Archaeology, the branch of archaeology that investigates daily life. I was born and spent my childhood in British Mandatorial Palestine and then grew up to adulthood in Israel after it was founded. I spent many years as a kibbutz member in the Northern Negev living near the Bedouin. These experiences brought me close to pre-industrial societies. All my life I was surrounded by archaeological sites, taught biblical archaeology for over 40 years in college and wrote several books and articles on subjects related to daily life in biblical times.

Oded's book list on life in biblical times

Oded Borowski Why did Oded love this book?

The Mediterranean Diet, the basis of which is formed by the Israelite diet, is something many people talk about. Although I had a chance to write articles and present papers on the Israelite diet, this book covers the subject and answers many related questions in a very thorough way: What did the ancient Israelites eat, and how much? The author carefully sifts through all the relevant evidence—biblical, archaeological, anthropological, environmentalto uncover what the people of biblical times really ate and how healthy (or unhealthy) it was.

By Nathan MacDonald,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat? Diet in Biblical Times as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What food did the ancient Israelites eat, and how much of it did they consume? That's a seemingly simple question, but it's actually a complex topic. In this fascinating book Nathan MacDonald carefully sifts through all the relevant evidence -- biblical, archaeological, anthropological, environmental -- to uncover what the people of biblical times really ate and how healthy (or unhealthy) it was.

Engagingly written for general readers, What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat? is nonetheless the fruit of extensive scholarly research; the book's substantial bibliography and endnotes point interested readers to a host of original sources. Including an archaeological timeline…


Book cover of The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Andrew Amelinckx Author Of Satellite Boy: The International Manhunt for a Master Thief That Launched the Modern Communication Age

From my list on narrative non-fiction that interweave crime and history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been enthralled with history since childhood thanks to my late father, a college professor with a passion for the past. Our house was always filled with history books of all types and my father was a veritable encyclopedia who enjoyed answering my questions. When I became a crime reporter in the early 2000s, my predilection for history merged with my interest in crime and I ended up writing four books centered around historical crimes ranging in time from the 1700s to the 1960s. 

Andrew's book list on narrative non-fiction that interweave crime and history

Andrew Amelinckx Why did Andrew love this book?

In The Poison Squad, Deborah Blum explores the era in American history before food and drugs were regulated, a wild time indeed when many patent medicines contained not only morphine or cocaine but a plethora of poisonous substances that killed many users.

Even worse, unregulated candy containing adulterated ingredients led to many children’s deaths. Blum not only does a wonderful job breaking down the science and politics involved in this fascinating story but gives a vivid picture of the late 19th century and early 20th in the U.S.

Today, when many are calling for deregulation, The Poison Squad is even more relevant. 

By Deborah Blum,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Poison Squad as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Notable Book 

The inspiration for PBS's AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film The Poison Squad.

From Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Deborah Blum, the dramatic true story of how food was made safe in the United States and the heroes, led by the inimitable Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, who fought for change

By the end of nineteenth century, food was dangerous. Lethal, even. "Milk" might contain formaldehyde, most often used to embalm corpses. Decaying meat was preserved with both salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical, and borax, a compound first identified as a cleaning product. This was…


Book cover of Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We've Been Told about Food Is Wrong

Gin Stephens Author Of Clean(ish): Eat (Mostly) Clean, Live (Mainly) Clean, and Unlock Your Body's Natural Ability to Self-Clean

From my list on when you’re confused about what to eat.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been interested in diets ever since I watched my mom diet while I was growing up. For decades, I enthusiastically jumped on the diet roller coaster myself, and thus began my quest to find the “perfect” way to eat. Not one of these “diets” ever worked for me for long-term weight loss, however, and I became more and more confused about what I “should” be eating. Finally, I was able to lose over 80 pounds thanks to intermittent fasting, but I was still confused about what I should be eating. Once I figured out the when (intermittent fasting), the what followed, thanks to the work of these authors.

Gin's book list on when you’re confused about what to eat

Gin Stephens Why did Gin love this book?

Tim Spector is a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and one of my favorite health researchers. In Spoon-Fed, Dr. Spector examines top myths about health, such as “nutritional guidelines and diet plans apply to everyone,” “calories accurately measure how fattening a food is,” and “gluten is dangerous.”

By Tim Spector,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Spoon-Fed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**

Everything we've been told about our diets is wrong

Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day?
Is there any point in counting calories?
Is there any evidence that coffee is bad for you?

Through his pioneering scientific research, Tim Spector busts these myths and combats food fake news. Spoon-Fed explores the scandalous lack of good science behind many medical and government diet recommendations, and how the food industry holds sway over these policies and our choices.

Spoon-Fed is a groundbreaking book that forces us to question every diet plan, official recommendation, miracle cure…


Book cover of Short & Sweet

Natasha Wing Author Of Bagel in Love

From my list on talking food books.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love a good pun and have written a joke book all about food called Lettuce Laugh. I think food is relatable to kids and they can put themselves in the food’s shoes and learn about friendship and being true to themselves through talking food characters. Humor plays a big part in the books I recommended, but it’s a great way to deliver a lasting message. Another book I wrote is also about food - Jalapeño Bagels, but unlike Bagel In Love, these bagels don’t talk! I love Bagel In Love so much I had a dress made with some of the characters embroidered on it.

Natasha's book list on talking food books

Natasha Wing Why did Natasha love this book?

Written in rhyme, this story is about a pancake and French toast that are going stale. They look for a way to refresh themselves and instead turn into baby versions. Josh Funk has set up a funny foodie world. Check out the first book, too, Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast. If you like these food puns, you’ll love the puns in Bagel In Love!

By Josh Funk, Brendan Kearney,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Short & Sweet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Age range 3+

Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast worry that they're going stale, so they visit Professor Biscotti's lab to try a new despoiling procedure. But instead of beautifying them, Professor Biscotti's faulty gadget transforms them into toddlers!

Scared in the presence of the now gargantuan-looking Baron von Waffle, the mini breakfast foods take off on an adventure in the fridge, visiting everywhere from the Bran Canyon to Limes Square.

Will Baron von Waffle and Professor Biscotti figure out a way to turn them back into a grown Lady and Sir, or will they stay short & sweet forever?



Book cover of Thank You, Omu!
Book cover of Stay for Dinner
Book cover of My Love for You Is Always

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