“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”.
I have just been introduced to this adorable book called ‘Start Looking Up’! This story shares a powerful message about the importance of having a positive attitude. Read this book to your little cutie, and teach them that happiness is a choice!You can check it out here.
“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”.
Our newest favorite is ‘I’m A Super Vegan’ by Katie Clark!
Elizabeth is a kind and compassionate person who is a wonderful influence for your little vegans!
The Vegan Mom 
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).
Hi Lisa-I really enjoyed your post about good childrens’ books-I’ve begun a ‘book review’ section on my blog because some of the books out there for kiddos are just awful!
I’m a vegetarian and was looking for recipes for the kiddos to enjoy which is how I came across your blog-thanks for all the recipes, ill definitely be checking back!
Trialstylemom
HI Lisa! I just found this post although it is a few years old. You may also be interested in my husband’s novels, as a similar message is promoted. His website is http://www.rsmarkel.com. I invite you to take a look.
Sending warm thoughts,
-Cheryl Markel
Boulder, CO
Hi Lisa! I’m a vegan mom too! =) My publishing company, Out of Step Books, recently released a book called “Start Looking Up!” that is a children’s story about how having a positive mental attitude can change your day (and your life). =) If you can email me at jinxi@OOSBooks.com with your shipping address, we would love to send you a copy.
Sounds good, I’ll be in touch.
Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you know about a little picture book I just wrote to help support vegan/vegetarian values in kids. Here you go. Please let me know if you like it and by all means, like my page if you do. Thanks.https://www.facebook.com/spaghettinomeatballs
Hi, Lisa!
I love your book recommendations. I think you might be interested in a new project of mine. I’ve published Yummy Stories, a fun food-related book for children ages four to eight, encouraging healthy eating habits. It is a delightful collection of six folk tales accompanied by rich, entertaining artwork, where fences are made of carrot sticks, clouds of cauliflower and mushrooms houses nestle in the green shadows of broccoli forests. Each story includes rhymes, entertaining sounds and concludes with a short poem. The book contains a coloring page and a game where readers have to discover characters hidden in other stories, as well as cleverly disguised vegetables.
I think Yummy Stories would be a good fit for your blog. Please let me know if you are interested. I would love to send you a paperback copy. Amazon link: http://bit.ly/YummyStories
All the best,
Lil
Hi, thank you for creating such a beautiful site and resource for vegan families. I hope you will take a look at my book that recently won a Mom’s Choice Gold Award. It is called Animooves: Yoga & Creativity Inspired by Animals and includes many fun and fascinating facts about farm animals. As a certified Vegan Lifestyle Coach and Educator, I hope to contribute to awareness of these beautiful creatures’ sentience and how much we have in common with them. The book is available on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Animooves-Yoga-Creativity-Inspired-Animals/dp/099615180X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439429510&sr=8-1&keywords=animooves
and there is also a companion website http://www.Animooves.com. Thank you!
Hi Lisa! Just wanted to let you know about a children’s book I wrote titled ‘Cows Cry Too’. Written to help children understand why vegans and vegetarians make the choice not to eat meat/animal products, the book starts out with a *gentle* glimpse inside factory farms and helps kids realize that most farms are not how they are portrayed in children’s books. It then shifts and talks about how animals have feelings just like us before culminating with the idea that they, themselves, can help ease farm animals’ pain and suffering by not eating eggs, milk or meat. I wrote it before “That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals”, because no such book really existed, but it is unique in that it is written more like a story (with prose similar to Dr. Seuss’s style) and uses photographs as opposed to illustrations. I just started a Kickstarter campaign to try to raise enough money to get it funded… through the link below, you can see a video of me reading some excerpts of the book to my son and read a bit of how the book came to be, if you’re interested! It would be great if you could check it out and/or help spread the word! Thanks so much!! Anna