Gardening Books to Entice Young Children

The Best Gardening books for Young Children

It’s finally warming up here in the mountains after a long, cold spring, and I’ve just finished planting the corn and tomatoes in my garden. I still need to let things warm up a bit more before I can plant the sweet potatoes, okra, peanuts, and peppers, plants who like it hot.

There are so many wonderful books that introduce the world of growing plants – board books for the youngest ones, books that introduce a single concept, and others that show the whole cycle of plants over the seasons. I am including a few of my favorite gardening books for young children. Keep in mind that children will learn best by following parents around as they plant seeds, water the plants and spend time outdoors to observe nature in all its seasons.

Gardening Shows Faith That the Future Will Unfold

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss, illustrated by Crockett Johnson is the earliest book I can remember about growing plants. A little boy plants a carrot seed, weeds and waters carefully in spite of his family’s doubts that the seed will sprout. In time it does grow into a carrot, as he trusted it would all along. There’s a lesson there for everyone.

Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, by Kate Messner, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal is for an older child. We see the garden in more complexity – what’s on top of the soil and what is down below. Not only plants, but also the birds, insects, and worms contribute to the life cycle of the garden. “Slugs are scrumptious too!” The garden comes alive in spring and summer, but autumn and winter play their part to prepare for spring to come again. Every gardener counts on it.

Plants Are Unique and Complex, Like People

If you want to enjoy a different slant on plants, read Plants Can’t Sit Still! By Rebecca E. Hirsch with illustrations by Mia Posada. All plants need water, sunshine and room to grow, but they aren’t stuck in place! “Plants don’t have feet, or fins, or wings, yet they can move in many ways.” The illustrations remind me of Eric Carle, with translucent collage depicting the ways plants and their seeds wiggle, squirm, reach, slither, climb, fly, and roll to move around and get where they’re going!

Up, Down, and Around by Katherine Ayres and Nadine Bernard Westcott is a charming rhyming book for younger children, which has dancing illustrations to go with the simple story. We dig a row, drop the seeds, and water, and then the fun begins! Some plants grow up, some grow down, and some grow around, all colorful and inviting, and eventually they provide a tasty meal for the gardeners.

Gardening is a Gift

Eve Bunting’s Flower Garden shows us that gardening is not just an occupation for the countryside. A girl and her father navigate their walkup apartment and city bus to get the supplies they need to make a window box full of flowers. Fellow bus riders and the neighbors can enjoy the flowers – along with the mother for whom the window box is a birthday present.

The Vegetables We Eat by Gail Gibbons is a fabulous resource about vegetables, Richard Scarry style. The pages are filled with information about types of vegetables, ways they grow and are harvested, and fun facts. The book includes information about agriculture, big farm equipment, and food products, and children of all ages will be able to enjoy this book. If you’re a homeschooling family, this would be a great introduction to botany as well as the food distribution system. Gibbons has written well over 100 non-fiction books for children and has written several more including Apples, From Seed to Plant, and Tell Me, Tree: All About Trees for Kids.

I could sing the praises of many more books about gardening, especially gardening books for young children, and I encourage you to get out and do it. What can be better than getting out in the sunshine and playing in the dirt?

For more book recommendations from A Grandmother’s Library Shelf, try Summertime Books for Young Children, or you can find all my recommendations here.

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