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A review by crystalisreading
The Farm That Feeds Us: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm by Nancy Castaldo
4.0
The Farm that Feeds Us by Nancy Castaldo is an attractive and educational juvenile nonfiction book, full of attractive illustrations and interesting facts about most aspects of farms and farming. When I requested an advanced copy of this title, I expected it to be a short and cute picture book for younger children, but it ended up clocking in 80 pages, with relatively small print and lots of information. Adults could certainly read this to children. Otherwise your target audience would be children with more advanced reading skills, in order to enjoy the writing (although I think the illustrations would charm even children who don't read yet.).
The author explains the annual cycle of the farm, starting with spring planting and honey bees and going through to bedding down for winter and preparing for the following year. I appreciated that so much emphasis was put on genetic diversity, heirloom seed varieties and livestock breeds, and environmental sustainability. I especially enjoyed the illustrative samplings of those heirloom plants and breeds, including pigs, sheep, cows, apples, and pumpkins, among others, and an introduction to various pollinators. This is a good way to affirm with children that local and organic products, when possible, are healthier choices. On the reverse, if that's not something with which you want your child indoctrinated, perhaps choose a book that is less heavy handed.
The art seems to seek to be diverse--most pages with multiple humans depicted will include at least one person of color. But the primary characters on each page tend to be white, with clear gender binaries and "traditional" family structures, so I was a little disappointed by that. I did appreciate that the recurring white female character was referred to as "the farmer" at one point, and not simply dismissed as a farmer's wife, and that all genders depicted were mostly shown sharing the work of the farm equally. My only other quibble, aside from fresh spinach being referred to as crunchy (I don't think of fresh spinach as crunchy, but maybe that's just me.), was that, despite so many other terms being carefully explained to the reader, the term "manure" is brought up on the farm equipment page, because of a manure spreader, but never explained. I personally am far too well acquainted with the concept of manure, having grown up on a farm myself, but for children that are unfamiliar with farming in general, there should really be an additional explanation that manure means livestock poop, which works as an effective natural fertilizer for crops.
Overall, though, #TheFarmThatFeedsUs is a lovely book about farming great for sharing with young readers in your life. Thank you to #NetGalley and Quarto Publishing for letting me read an #advancedcopy of this lovely book in exchange for an honest review.
The author explains the annual cycle of the farm, starting with spring planting and honey bees and going through to bedding down for winter and preparing for the following year. I appreciated that so much emphasis was put on genetic diversity, heirloom seed varieties and livestock breeds, and environmental sustainability. I especially enjoyed the illustrative samplings of those heirloom plants and breeds, including pigs, sheep, cows, apples, and pumpkins, among others, and an introduction to various pollinators. This is a good way to affirm with children that local and organic products, when possible, are healthier choices. On the reverse, if that's not something with which you want your child indoctrinated, perhaps choose a book that is less heavy handed.
The art seems to seek to be diverse--most pages with multiple humans depicted will include at least one person of color. But the primary characters on each page tend to be white, with clear gender binaries and "traditional" family structures, so I was a little disappointed by that. I did appreciate that the recurring white female character was referred to as "the farmer" at one point, and not simply dismissed as a farmer's wife, and that all genders depicted were mostly shown sharing the work of the farm equally. My only other quibble, aside from fresh spinach being referred to as crunchy (I don't think of fresh spinach as crunchy, but maybe that's just me.), was that, despite so many other terms being carefully explained to the reader, the term "manure" is brought up on the farm equipment page, because of a manure spreader, but never explained. I personally am far too well acquainted with the concept of manure, having grown up on a farm myself, but for children that are unfamiliar with farming in general, there should really be an additional explanation that manure means livestock poop, which works as an effective natural fertilizer for crops.
Overall, though, #TheFarmThatFeedsUs is a lovely book about farming great for sharing with young readers in your life. Thank you to #NetGalley and Quarto Publishing for letting me read an #advancedcopy of this lovely book in exchange for an honest review.