Children's books about farms and farming

July 30, 2024

Good morning.

Thought you’d like to see this professional studio portrait I came across at my mom’s house recently. She was 41 — the same age I am now 🤯 — and I was 4.

Is anyone surprised we’re holding a book?

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Mini issue: farms and farming

It’s a little startling to me that I have not, in the past 4+ years, written much of anything at all about farms and farming — unless you count my mini issue on farmer’s markets, which is related, to be sure, but not the same thing.

Children's books about farmer's markets

After all, Wisconsin is one of the biggest agriculture states in the country (the actual number depends on your metric, but we’re always in the top 10 no matter the measure); I live in the county that produces the most corn in the state; I know which crops I drive past every day (and which cover crops are controlling erosion in winter or when the land has been taken out of rotation for the year); I hear more about dirt from my husband, a USDA soil conservationist, than any one human being should have to. (Car rides are fun: LOOK, A GRASS WATERWAY! LOOK, ANOTHER ONE!)

I’m pretty passionate about where our food comes from, and moreover, making sure our children understand this too. Where does it grow? Who grows it? How does it get to our table?

This isn’t to say I go crazy on this topic — I go crazy about enough other things — I just want to foster gratitude for the big and the small alike (though I don’t think food is a small thing at all). I am also down for reading stories about farms and farm animals without any kind of explicit link to how they serve humans — farms are fascinating places, as are the animals and plants found there.

So this issue is a mixture of both kinds of titles: farms and farming books about where our food comes from alongside titles about, like, kicking up your heels in the barnyard (Barn Dance by by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, anyone?👇)

If I’ve reviewed any of these titles, I’ve linked to those here.

Books for babies and toddlers:

• Barnyard Dance! by Sandra Boynton

• Noisy Farm by Rod Campbell

• Mrs. Wishy Washy’s Farm by Joy Cowley (my favorite of all the Mrs. Wishy Washy books)

• Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins

• Down on the Farm by Merrily Kutner

• Hello Farm, How Do You Do? by Marjolein Thiebout

• Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

Picture books:

• Milk: From Cow to Carton by Aliki (nonfiction)

• It’s Milking Time by Phyllis Alsdurf

• I Love Strawberries! by Shannon Anderson

• Before We Eat by Pat Brisson

• Farm Boots by Lisl H. Detlefsen

• Right This Very Minute: A Table-to-Farm Book about Food and Farming by Lisl H. Detlefsen

• Time for Cranberries by Lisl H. Detlefsen

Time for Cranberries by Lisl Detlefsen, who I interviewed this past May — click through for some of her own (fabulous) recommendations for books about agriculture

• Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candice Fleming

• Uncle John’s City Garden by Bernette G. Ford

• Thank a Farmer by Maria Giangerrari

• The Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons (this is also an excellent Reading Rainbow episode, FYI)

• Barn at Night by Michelle Houts

• The Midnight Farm by Reeve Lindbergh

• Chicken Talk by Patricia MacLachlan

• The Hundred-Year Barn by Patricia MacLachlan

• Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen

• Baby Farm Animals by Garth Williams

Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary by Maya Gottfried —highly recommend this one!

Poetry

• Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary by Maya Gottfried (above)

• Chicken Scratches: Poultry Poetry and Rooster Rhymes by Lynn Brunelle and George Shannon

• Cockadoodle Moo: Rhymes for the Very Young by John Foster

• The Barn by Leah Rogers

Books for older readers, or read-alouds:

• Escape From Baxter’s Barn by Rebecca Bond

• The Farm That Feeds Us: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm by Nancy Castaldo (nonfiction)

• Chanticleer and the Fox, adapted from Geoffrey Chaucer by Barbara Cooney

• Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones

• Babe, the Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith

• Pigs Might Fly by Dick-King Smith

• Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen

• Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

• Alice’s Farm: A Rabbit’s Tale by Maryrose Wood

I know I’ve missed a ton of great farm and farming titles — add your suggestions!

Me and my eldest in 2015 at her first Breakfast on the Farm, a hallowed Wisconsin summer tradition

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Happy reading!

Sarah