“Children’s Books with a Positive Message”
My kids and I have chosen some fabulous books that are fun, touching, uplifting & informative. All of these stories are suitable for young children and will teach your child about respect for our earth’s creatures!
If your book, or a book you love does not end up on our list, please let me know about it in the comment section!
The Vegan Mom’s #1 favorite children’s book is “That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals” by Ruby Roth
The title of this book gets right to the point, and the reader is immediately pulled into the inner lives of animals. We learn about their personalities, their likes, dislikes, what makes them happy, sad, scared and excited. So basically children learn that animals are not much different than you and I.
A full review of ”That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals” is available on my blog under the category “reviews”. Please check it out!
Another fabulous book, that will have your children asking the question “how does it feel to be food” is
“Garlic-Onion-Beet-Spinach-Mango-Carrot-Grapefruit Juice” by Nathalie VanBalen. Yep, that’s what it’s called, and it will really make kids take a second look at what they eat! Please look for my full review of this book, on this blog under the category “reviews”.
“Our Farm” by Maya Gottfried is a book based on animals from “Farm Sanctuary”, a safe haven for rescued farm animals. There are lots of little poems about animals who live, or once lived there. The short stories are very sweet and the pictures are adorable. Young children will really enjoy this touching book.
“Herb The Vegetarian Dragon” by Jules Bass & Debbie Harter is a “magical” story about a “veggie loving” dragon and the meat eating dragons he is surrounded by. Children will learn about peace, love & standing up for what is right!! “A very fun book to read”!!
A classic book with a beautiful message of love, and a reminder about the gifts that nature offers us, is “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. In this story, a simple tree is able to offer a lifetime of gifts to a boy. This special tree gives & and gives… until there is hardly anything left of it to give. I always shed a tear when I finish reading this story, but I always feel a little extra appreciation for nature and the living world around us. “I hope that someday, we will begin to give a little more, and take less from this beautiful planet”.
Still reading! More books to come!!
I am excited to see what you come up with! My list started at two or three titles (inc. Dr Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who and Keith Baker’s Who Is the Beast?), but now I have dozens of veg-friendly favorites. There are some goodies out there, if you’re willing to wade through all the rest (which can be exploitative or just insipid).
Here is another great one that really shows how animals have relationships too, and help kids identify with animals. http://beautifulbooks.posterous.com/i-love-my-mommy-because-by-laurel-porter-gayl
Thanks for sharing these books, and I will be excited to see as you add more!
my 4 year old loves Herb the Vegetarian Dragon, we check it out from the library all of the time.
Thanks for the book titles. I have never heard of any of them, and as a vegan mom myself (2 year old vegan toddler), it’s nice to know that some good books are out there, other than the typical ones. I was reading a book the other day (Veggie Tales I think?) anyhow, the vegetables were eating real turkey in the story!!! Wee bit bizarre, to say the least!!!
I just picked up a kids book today called “Steve the Vegan”..so cute!
I’ll check it out!
I love what you’re doing here. I also draw/write vegan stories for children of all ages and you can find them all at Violet’s Veg*n e-comics. They’re all free to view and I am in the process now of uploading them to scribd and issuu (I’ll post in the updates when that’s done) so people can easily download them and keep them. I’d love it if you visited. Thank you
violetsvegnecomics.com
wow, I had no idea there were so many vegan-riffic children’s books out there. Thanks!
I love your book recommendations! I’ve got another for you and your followers: “Phoebe the Foodie.” For the toddler set, written in catchy rhyme and all about REAL food – specifically only colorful fruits and veggies.
Like Phoebe on FB!
My 6 month old isn’t totally processing all the books yet, but I’ve been reading to her anyway (I know it’s good for her!). I read her a “Peter Rabbit” story I hadn’t read since I was a child and was somewhat shocked to read that the reason Peter Rabbit isn’t supposed to go to Mr. McGregor’s garden is because Peter’s dad had an “accident” there and was BAKED INTO A PIE! I think with classic stories like this, it will make it easy to say to her, “Isn’t that crazy that people eat animals!? Why would you want to eat Peter’s dad!?” Anyway, thanks for the suggestions! Looking forward to checking them out (especially once she gets a bit older and we can talk more about veganism together).