“Happy Veggies” by Japanese artist Mayumi Oda is a joyous book for gardeners who want to share their love of the earth with children. Starting with green and purple asparagus in the Spring, the book moves festively through the seasons, showing through gorgeous illustrations how all kinds of weather combine to produce a happy harvest. The legendary artist inspires children to see the garden as a life-giving place where Nature nurtures them. 5/5

Pub Date 09 Oct 2018

Thanks to Parallax Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#HappyVeggies #NetGalley

This book is a great way of teaching children where their veggies come from. So many children see veggies in the store or farmer's market and do not know how they grow. I personally find the brussels sprouts to be the most interesting. The illustrations were simple but effective. It was nice it included herbs as well as the vegetables. This book could be used both in the classroom and at home.

This is important: Keep in mind that if you children read in a Kindle the colors and images won't look as they would in an ipad. Get the ipad the colors are brighter.

My honest review is bittersweet. Cute drawings, and witty lyrics, but I would not read this with my children. I have a girl who LOVES to draw, and loves fruits and vegetables, so the title of this book caught my attention.

When I received this book for my honest review I did not know the background of the author, at the end she mentions that she has an ancient Hawaiian religion. Although his drawings are cute, she spreads her believes in the content of the cute vegetables, I did not like not having known in advance that it had a content beyond nature and vegetables (as I read in the preview lines). I respect the author, however, as a mother, I would not like my children to thank "mother earth", "deities of Hawaii" or "spirits of the valley" or "invisible hugs" as mentioned in the end.

You must consider this, too, before you blindly embark on this book as I did. I want my children to have a grateful heart with God for all the delights that He created and the marvelous creativity in His creation. I do not want it to involve themes of idols or religions of other lands or with "mother earth" (I know and respect everyone`s believes but these are not ours). I think it is important that each parent consider these details before getting the book for their children.

I share with the author the admiration for the beauty on earth and the feeling of our responsibility with future generations and the care of the resources we have.

I just reviewed Happy Veggies by Mayumi Oda. #HappyVeggies #NetGalley

Happy Veggies is a sweet book for the little ones to get to know veggies. It is really simple, but that is the charm of it. Even the simple ink illustrations of the veggies manage to capture your attention, especially when joined by the some simple verses about cabbages, radishes and more.

I think it's a great book to get kids to know and recognize vegetables, but also to understand where these vegetables are coming from, how they are grown and maybe get them into gardening!

Simple illustrations and text make this an enjoyable read for anyone longing to be in the garden! I liked the poetic vibe to this book and appreciate that while information is not explicitly taught, young readers can infer a lot about how their food grows.

Simple illustrations that are not too complicated but still clearly resemble the actual vegetable that they represent so a soft teaching tool for children in ID-ing veggies.

As an avid gardener and bee lover myself, I relished the two page spread of the herb garden full of bees and ladybugs.

Aside from the illustrations that instruct on vegetable appearance, there isn't too much else to learn and that's just fine. It reads like a lackadaisical summer stroll through a garden in peak bloom

"Tomatoes feast on the summer sun 'til their bellies are full to bursting." A poetry perfect explanation of tomatoes.

Read an epub version but imagine it would be ful to flip thru the oversized pages of this garden.

Oh and you may end up discussing the true origins of popcorn with young readers.

A good book for what it is, light on words, heavy on pictures and soft on the soul.

In 2005, Richard Louv coined the phrase Nature Deficit Disorder. Although not a recognized medical disorder, it’s easy to see that many of us spend a significant amount of time indoors and are alienated from nature. Some studies indicate that being disconnected from nature is associated with anxiety, depression, and obesity while direct experience of nature promotes creativity, problem solving, focus, and physical health.

Long before 2005, I joined the ranks of those alienated from nature. It’s not that I don’t like the outdoors; I find it beautiful. I just don’t always want to be outside in the outdoors. Along with this comes a disconnect with the source of our food. Recently, I took a completely unscientific quiz assessing how much I knew about the way food grew. Was it from a tree, a bush, or the ground? Needless to say, I did not perform well.

Happy Veggies promotes a connection with the outdoors and shows how popular vegetables like corn, carrots, beans and tomatoes grow. The text introduces the food through the seasons: asparagus and onions in spring; eggplants and beans in the summer; corn and pumpkins in fall; and root vegetables in the winter. We see also creatures who live in the garden such as bees, butterflies, worms, and moles. As winter ends, the cycle renews.

Mayumi Oda’s illustrations are lovely. To me, they draw from the rich tradition of Japanese art. The vegetables are primarily shown in close up, both what they look like above and below the ground, and sometimes below the ground is as or more colorful as what’s seen above. Even though I’m not a fan of onions, the illustration of purple and yellow onions is so stunning, I would put a poster of it on my wall.

I liked the text less than the illustrations. Some of the pages rhymed, some did not. At times, the story talked to the reader: “Do you want to meet Mother Nature?” and “Potatoes are a garden’s heart. Can you hear them?” But other times, the text was directed to the vegetables themselves as when it exhorted beans to “Grow, grow!” Consequently, the book did cohere as well as it could have.

The style is rather dreamy and talks of angels visiting the garden and corn popping from the stalk (which I don’t think can happen normally!). I wondered if the style and these images would not bring children closer to Mother Nature but make her seem unreal.

That said, Happy Veggies is a valiant effort to teach children how their food grows and promote a connection to the natural world. It’s especially worth perusing for the stunning artwork.

This was a charming little book. The writing was okay: sweet, but no necessarily something I would want to read over and over again to my kid. The pictures were lovely as was the message for kids to appreciate the nature around them.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cute little children's book about vegetables. The story was cute and the pictures were great too! My kids loved it!