Away from Playing by the book I’ve been spending most of my spare time this last couple of weeks working on a Food Explorers day at M’s infant school. Next week we’re holding a workshop for kids and their parents/carers to explore different, new foods, healthy eating, and links to the curriculum, specifically two topics they cover in year 1 (ages 5-6); the Five Senses and From Field to Fork.

As part of this workshop we’ve an area dedicated to some quiet time, packed with picture books, nonfiction books, books for adults and books for kids all about food, healthy eating and related issues. Books being my thing, I took on the responsibility for drawing up a list of books to borrow through the city library system and I’ve had a lot of fun with this. As food/healthy living is a topic many people will cover at school if not also at home I thought I’d share my list of recommendations here.
I do not eat the colour green! By Lynne Rickards
Eat your peas By Kes Gray
Oliver’s Fruit Salad By Vivian French
I know where my food goes By Jacqui Maynard
I will not ever never eat a tomato By Lauren Child
Oliver’s Vegetables By Vivian French
Oliver’s milkshake By Vivian French
Everybody cooks rice By Norah Dooley
Healthy eating : diet and nutrition By Anna Claybourne
Fabulous fruit By Bryony Jones
Flabby Tabby By Penny McKinlay
ThegGood green lunchbox By Jocelyn Miller
Green eggs and ham By Dr Seuss
Pumpkin soup By Helen Cooper
Very tasty vegetables By Bryony Jones
Little cooks By Fiona Hamilton-Fairley
Eating the Alphabet : fruits and vegetables from A to Z By Lois Ehlert
Eddie’s Garden By Sarah Garland
Eddie’s Kitchen By Sarah Garland
The Great Big Veg Challenge: How to get your children eating vegetables happily By Charlotte Hume
Healthy Lunchboxes for Kids By Amanda Grant
Tasty Poems By Jill Bennett
The Sun is a Cupcake and Other Poems About Food Complied by Brian Moses
Revolting Recipes by Roald Dahl
Up, Down and Around by Katherine Ayers
The Edible Pyramid: Good Eating Every Day By Loreen Leedy
I Get So Hungry By Bebe Moore Campbell and Amy Bates
Hubert the Pudge: A Vegetarian Tale by Henrik Drescher
Finn Cooks By Birte Muller
Eat Healthy, Feel Great By William Sears
As it happens, British Mummy Bloggers are holding a #secretgoodness Twitter party today between 1 and 2pm (UK time) on the theme of healthy eating. You can read full details here!
It’s the first Twitter party I’ll have attended and I’m looking forward to it. Part of the school workshop is going to include a Guess the Hidden Vegetable cake stall, so I’ve been doing lots of practical, kitchen based reseach on veg packed cakes and I’ll be handing out some of my favourite #secretgoodness recipes at the party. Hope to see you there 🙂 If you can’t make the party, please do leave any book recommendations in the comments as there’s still time for me to order a few more books!
[And yes, I do see the slight irony of this post immediately following on from our sugar encrusted doughnut fest!]
Kristine
My eldest has just discovered and loves “Green Eggs and Ham.” She was suspiciously watching me prepare lunch one day (I can’t remember what it was) and I broke into a rendition (based loosely on memory and also on what we were eating) and sure enough she tried it and loved it.
DelphB
We love the gorgeous illustrations and funny text of Vegetable Glue!
As for recipes, two of the ones I keep making to get even more goodness into the kids are these chocolate (beetroot) muffins and zucchini cake:
http://aweebitofcooking.co.uk/2010/02/26/chocolate-beetroot-muffins/
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/08/zucchini-cake-with-crunchy-lemon/