Love No Nibbling!? Readers share 100 books like No Nibbling!...

Besides the fact that the illustrations in On a Magical Do-Nothing Day are gorgeous, I love this story of a child turning a boring, lonely, rainy day into a magical (dare I say spiritual?) adventure—an encounter with “a world full of treasures that I could feel!”

I’ve often found that a life-changing experience of beauty comes after some difficulty or personal challenge, and this kid discovers—after being ignored by their parents, losing their favorite video game in a stream, and being drenched by cold rain—a breathtaking world that seems “brand-new, as if it had been created right in front of me.” 

Simple drawings, simple text, nails the moral with an absolute gut punch that feels just right. It’s got expert pacing! It’s got animals!

This book has won a million awards for a reason. The plot? Taylor builds a thing with blocks. It gets knocked down. Different animals present different strategies for coping, but ultimately Taylor just needed someone to listen to him. Enter rabbit.

So simple! And sooooo human. AI wishes it could distill an essential human experience like this. But it can’t - yet - I don’t think. So prbtrbrtb.

I’m a creature of habit. So is Scaredy Squirrel. We both know the comforts of feeling safe in perfect routines where nothing is left to chance, where nothing can go wrong…right?  

Scaredy writes lists of his emergency procedures, draws grids of his safety equipment, diagrams his secret exit strategies. I feel this poor squirrel’s pain. How many nights have I lain awake before a school visit mulling over my presentations? No plan is fool proof. So when Scaredy accidentally falls from his tree, he does what he must: thinks quickly and improvises. And discovers a secret ability he never knew he had. 

In the end, Melanie Watt gives Scaredy most of his old routine back, but now it’s balanced with a healthy dose of adventure. Perfectly balanced, I’d say.

We presume all animals love their habitat and their lot in life; birds love the sky, snakes love the grass, and bears, of course, love the woods. But not so much for the star of this book; a petulant little penguin who seems to have gotten up on the wrong side of the ice floe. He’s crabby about the too-white snow, the too-cold temperature, the too-salty sea, and his too-lookalike colony of penguin pals. Basically, everything makes him crabby, but in a way that’s amusing. After a day of carping, a wise walrus gives him a lecture about appreciating the beauty of his world and the love of his companions. This improves his attitude…for about two pages.

By the end of the book, the little grump is back to his old self, griping about the weather and the early darkness. It’s refreshing to see a character who doesn’t completely transform… show more.

The Busy Busy Day is a lovely picture book that gently allows the children to discover for themselves the different indications that spring has arrived. I like the way it highlights the importance of caring for and appreciating nature even if it is in our own back garden. 

The illustrations are beautiful. I am always in awe of Daniel Howarth’s illustrations and have been lucky enough for him to have illustrated some of my own books. The clever way he illustrates the different characters showing their emotions makes them come to life on the page. You can laugh along with the children as Ginger the Cat and Floppy the Rabbit get into a muddle whilst gardening.

This is the third book about Lola, who loves to read. When her mother reads her a book of gardening poems, Lola decides to plant a garden. Note that Lola is quite young, and this book is for 2- to 5-year-olds. Lola begins her project by getting books at the library and deciding which flowers to plant. Then her mother helps her buy seeds and plant them. Lola makes a flower book while she’s waiting for the seeds to grow. When they do, she has a party to share her sunflowers and a story with friends. A sweet book that celebrates both reading and gardening. 

This book is colourful, joyful, and deliciously diverse. The simple rhyme is rollicking but not too sweet, the illustrations are bright and playful, with plenty of fun detail. I love the mixture of people (all ages and colours and abilities) at work in the community garden, and how there is room for different ways of doing things (some plots are neat and proper while others are messy and wild). Best of all is how the story ends with everyone sitting down together to enjoy a garden-grown feast. Community, humour, hospitality, gratitude, and care for the earth—this little story is a cornucopia of good things. 

First, let me explain where I'm coming from – my husband and I spent over a decade growing nearly all of our own vegetables and a considerable portion of our other sustenance on our homestead. So even though our current smaller plot only feeds us a side dish or three per day, I tend to think of gardening as something that should be good for our wallets as well as our bellies and the earth. Gardening When It Counts is all that and is 100% based on the author's personal experience growing most of his own food. Highly recommended.

I’ve been recommending Brian Capon’s Botany for Gardeners to my gardening students for years. Unlike your typical botany textbook, it’s written expressly for gardeners, which means it presents all you need to know about botany if you are a gardener, not a scientist or a botany student. The presentation is clear, concise, and conversational, so it feels like learning about botany from a friend…a really smart friend! This book will either take you as far as you need to go in botany, or it will open you up to the world of botany and inspire you to learn more. 

Many garden books are structured in a classic four-seasons pattern, but this one goes beyond, by delineating the gardening year as steps in the essence of all living beings—from conception in January, adulthood in July and August, to death in December. This clever and thoughtful approach celebrates the fact that we are all woven into the fabric of the natural world. Add to that the author’s lifetime of good gardening experience and advice, and this book shows readers in intimate detail how to work with nature, not against her.