6 Veggie-Focused Picture Books That Emphasize the Fun in Vegetables

How Are You Peeling?, by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers
If you are stuck in a vegetable rut of any kind, check out the many terrific books by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers. From Dog Food, in which peppers, pears, and potatoes transform into dogs with a range of personalities, to One Lonely Sea Horse, in which a sea horse made of beets searches an ocean full of vegetable creatures for a pal, all their books are surprising, creative, and moving. My favorite, however, is How Are You Peeling?, a book about emotions in which vegetables portray a variety of feelings, from jealousy to timidity to happiness with startling accuracy, rivaling the emotional flexibility of award-winning actors. Halloween is a lot more fun when you follow the Freymann/Elffers formula and look for pumpkins whose stems could make good noses and embed black-eyed peas for expressive eyes.

Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z , by Lois Ehlert
This classic of vegetable literature features Ehlert’s winsome watercolor collages of of bold veggies and fruits. It contains a mix of the familiar, including the bumpy-skinned avocado and the bright purple beet, and some foods your kids might not know about—endive, vegetable marrow, and ugli fruit.

Little Pea, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jen Corace
If human children have to eat their vegetables in order to earn dessert, what do vegetable children have to eat to earn their treats? Little Pea answers this question in the story of the adorable, freckle-cheeked Little Pea, whose parents make him eat the hated candy for dinner. “That’s what you have to eat for dinner every night when you’re a pea. Candy. Candy. Candy,” Krouse Rosenthal writes. After some whining, Little Pea’s parents convince him to eat five pieces of candy and reward him with his favorite dessert: spinach.

I Will Never Not Ever Eat A Tomato, by Lauren Child
In this story about big brother Charlie and little sister Lola, which Lauren Child illustrates through a vibrant mix of pencil drawings and collage, Charlie’s parents tell him to feed Lola her dinner. “This is difficult because she is a very fussy eater,” Charlie narrates. Lola gives Charlie a long list of things she will not eat, and concludes by insisting, “I absolutely will never not ever eat a tomato.” However, when carrots become “orange twiglets,” peas become “green drops,” and tomatoes become “moonsquirters,” anything is possible.

Veggies With Wedgies, by Todd H. Doodler
When Farmer John hung his underwear out to dry, he should have known it would draw the attention of some of the residents of his farm. After all, underwear is fascinating, especially to those whose acquaintance with it is new. However, it can be tricky to figure out just how to put on the underpants, especially if you’re an onion. Wedgie alert!

Vegetables in Underwear, by Jared Chapman
Sometimes profound ideas enter the zeitgeist and are expressed by a number of creative thinkers from different places at the same time. Veggies With Wedgies hit bookstores in 2014, while Jared Chapman published Vegetables in Underwear a few months later in 2015. I say there is more than enough room for all books that combine undergarments with vegetables, especially when the stalk of broccoli in tightie whities—make that tightie redies—is as cute as the one Chapman has created. This book will give the newly-potty trained some big-kid pride when they see that the baby carrot is still in diapers.