The following are examples of suggested educational reading materials that have agricultural themes. Many are available at local libraries.
Title: Oh Say Can You Seed? All about Flowering Plants.
Author: Bonnie Worth
Illustrator: Aristides Ruiz
Publisher/Date: Random House - New York (March 2001)
ISBN: 0-375-81095-1
Reading Level: Intermediate (3rd-4th grade students)
Description: The main goal of any Ag-in-the-Classroom program is to increase agricultural awareness among the students in school. One easy way to accomplish this is through a reading program that introduces agricultural themes using books at their grade level.
Title: The Big Red Barn
Author: Eve Bunting
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Harcourt Children’s Books (March 1, 1979)
ISBN: 0156119382
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Description: A youngster’s sense of security is threatened by the arrival of a stepmother and the destruction of the old red barn on her family’s farm.
Title: Bob
Author: Tracey Campbell Pearson
Illustrator: Tracey Campbell Pearson
Publisher/Date: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ( September 25, 2002)
ISBN: 0374399573
Reading Level: Ages 3-6
Description: Bob the Rooster has lived around the hens all his life. He knows only how to cluck, but Henrietta the cat tells him he needs to learn to crow. He has to go through many teachers before he finds one that can teach him to crow, but the many voices he learns come in handy when a fox comes slinking around the chicken house.
Title: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
Author: Doreen Cronin
Illustrator: Betsy Lewin
Publisher/Date: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing ( February 1, 2000)
ISBN: 0689832133
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Description: Farmer Brown is dumbfounded when his cows learn to communicate by typing. The clever critters calmly and politely stand up for their rights, while their human caretaker becomes more and more unglued.
Title: Colonial Farm
Author: June Behrens, Pauline Brower
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Children’s Press (1976)
ISBN: 0516087185
Reading Level: Not Available
Description: Text and photographs present life on a self-sufficient farm in colonial Virginia.
Title: Farm Machines
Author: Nicholas Wykeham
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Raintree Publications (May 1, 1979)
ISBN: 0817213287
Reading Level: Not Available
Description: Describes various pieces of farm machinery and discusses their uses.
Title: Farmer Boy Days
Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustrator: Renee Graef
Publisher/Date: Harper Trophy (February 28, 1998)
ISBN: 0064420612
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Description: As he grows up on his family’s farm in New York, Almanzo Wilder dreams of having a colt of his own.
Title: Farmer Duck
Author: Martin Waddell
Illustrator: Helen Oxenbury
Publisher/Date: Candlewick ( July 14, 2002)
ISBN: 0763621676
Reading Level: Baby-Preschool
Description: A poor duck is overworked by a lazy farmer until the duck’s farm friends mete out their own brand of barnyard justice.
Title: Leah’s Pony
Author: Elizabeth Friedrich
llustrator: Michael Garland
Publisher/Date: Boyds Mill Press (September 1, 1999)
ISBN: 1563978288
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Description: Leah’s parents are farmers in the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. When the bank forecloses and orders a farm auction, Leah sells her beloved pony and uses the money to bid one dollar on her father’s all-important tractor.
Title: Machines on the Farm
Author: Hope Irwin Marston
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Putnam Publishing Group Library (August 1, 1982)
ISBN: 0396080707
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Description: Explains how farmers use tractors, plows, planters, sprayers, cultivators, balers, combines and other machines in the production of various crops.
Title: McBroom’s Ear
Author: Sid Fleischman
Illustrator: Kurt Werth
Publisher/Date: Little Brown & Co. (April 1, 1982)
ISBN: 0316285390
Reading Level: Not Available
Description: The war is on when the grasshoppers attack Josh McBroom’s fabulous one-acre farm and prize ear of corn.
Title: Portrait of a Farm Family
Author: Raymond Bial
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Houghton Mifflin (September 25, 1995)
ISBN: 0395699363
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Description: Twelve-year-old Mark Steidinger and his seven brothers and sisters live on a family-run dairy farm in Illinois. Without talking down to young readers, Bial brings the Steidingers’ everyday world to life and fits it neatly into an excellent discussion of family-farm-based agriculture and the U.S. economy.
Title: Ten Big Farms
Author: Dahlov Ipcar
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Random House (January, 2000)
ISBN: 0394807707
Reading Level: Not Available
Description: Not Available
Title: Thunder Cake
Author: Patricia Polacco
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Paperstar Book (September 1, 1997)
ISBN: 0698115813
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Description: Grandma finds a way to dispel her grandchild’s fear of thunderstorms by baking a special cake while the storm threatens.
Title: Tractors, Plows, and Harvesters: A Book About Farm Machines
Author: Norman Richards
llustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Doubleday (1978)
ISBN: 0385123485
Reading Level: Not Available
Description: Photographs with captions identify modern farm machinery.
Title: ‘ Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving
Author: Dav Pilkey
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Scholastic Paperbacks ( October 1, 2004)
ISBN: 0439669375
Reading Level: Baby-Preschool
Description: Farmer Mack Nuggett shows his dastardly plan to eight children on a Thanksgiving field trip. The children rescue the turkeys and have a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner.
Title: Vegetables, Vegetables!
Author: Kay Robinson
Illustrator: Not Applicable
Publisher/Date: Children’s Press (March 1, 1995)
ISBN: 0516460307
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Description: Growing vegetables in your own garden.
Title: Who Took the Farmer’s Hat?
Author: Joan L. Nodset
Illustrator: Fritz Siebel
Publisher/Date: Harper Trophy
ISBN: 0064431746
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Description: A gust of wind sets into motion the funny tale of a farmer and his search for his hat.