Recommended books for children

Surrounding children with healthy food messages can help create happy and competent eaters. Sharing books that feature vegetables is a great way to build interest and enjoyment of them, without the pressure of eating them.

Why books?

Reading books featuring vegetables can be a great way for children to become familiar and comfortable with them, and this repeated exposure using fun and engaging books can help children feel more confident to try those vegetables when presented at a meal, as well as to enjoy them more. Studies confirm this, and have found that reading children books featuring vegetables can have a meaningful impact on the amount of vegetables they consumed. In fact, one study found that children who were exposed to vegetable-themed books ate twice as many vegetables after, compared to other children!

While food-themed books are a great way to offer low-pressure positive food exposures in daily routines, reading any books (food-themed or not!) also contributes to children’s learning and development in lots of important ways, such as promoting literacy, numeracy, colour recognition, emotional development, cultural representation, and language development.