A delicious celebration of food and farming sure to inspire readers of all ages to learn more about where their food comes from - right this very minute! Here are the stories of what farmers really do to bring food to the table.

Young Phineas Quinn is suspicious of the vegetable soup his mom serves for lunch. Phin declares he won't slup a single spoonful until he knows where his soup comes from! Much to Phin's surprise, a man in a flying tomato balloon shows up to answer this stirring question!

An equally stimulating publication from Shelburne Farms is This Lake Alive: An Interdisciplinary Handbook for Teaching and Learning about the Lake Champlain Basin. This is not a teaching curriculum, but rather an opportunity to create curriculum. Essays, activities, and resources take the participant through the worlds of geology, geography, history, nautical archeology, and ecology. Although the focus for this study is Lake Champlain (the nation's sixth largest lake and for a short period of time officially a "great lake"), the template of this book will translate easily to other bodies of water.

When Willie gets a bad grade on his essay about how life on farms is easy, his parents send him and his sister to visit their aunt and uncle's farm so he can figure out what farm life is really like and write a better essay.

Back in the 1830s, who was a young blacksmith from Vermont, about to make his mark on American history? John Deere, that’s who! Who moved to Illinois, where farmers were struggling to plow through the thick, rich soil they called gumbo? Who tinkered and tweaked and tested until he invented a steel plow that sliced into the prairie easy as you please? Long before the first tractor, who changed farming forever? John Deere, that’s who! Beautiful illustrations—including spectacular landscapes—reflect the time period and bring John Deere's remarkable story to life.

* MOONBEAM GOLD AWARD * * GROWING GOOD KIDS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY AND NATIONAL MASTER JUNIOR GARDENER PROGRAM * Milk doesn't just appear in your refrigerator, nor do apples grow in the bowl on the kitchen counter. Before We Eat has been adopted by the USDA’s Agriculture in the Classroom program. Before we eat, many people work very hard—planting grain, catching fish, tending farm animals, and filling crates of vegetables. With vibrant illustrations by Caldecott Medalist Mary Azarian, this book reminds us what must happen before food gets to our tables to nourish our bodies and spirits. This expanded edition of Before We Eat includes back-of-book features about school gardens and the national farm-to-school movement. Fountas & Pinnell Level L