Our Baby Turns Two!

By JESSICA ALMY

It’s our second anniversary, and while we’ll be announcing the winner of our 500th Review Contest shortly — hold onto your socks! — we wanted to commemorate this milestone by sharing with you our picks for the best books for two-year-olds.

When I launched Vegbooks two years ago, I would have never dreamed that so many talented, inspiring parents and educators would be writing for the site! I’m honored to have the opportunity to showcase their work, and to have so many loyal readers to boot. Thank you.

Without further ado, here are our recommendations for two-year-old vegan and vegetarian kids —

Homa Woodrum recommends Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? as her favorite book for 2-year-olds.  “It seems so simple but has an ageless quality,” she says. “I love that it is one of the first books kids can ‘read’ to themselves once they know the animals and their colors.”

Jennifer Kali has two books to recommend: Miss Spider’s Tea Party, which she describes as “a fun, lyrical, colorful book about a vegetarian spider,” and Flying Free, which she sums up in this way:

A little girl captures a firefly to light up her room while she’s sleeping.  She loves the firefly, but the firefly just wants to fly free.

Jennifer Gannett has this to say about Lois Ehlert’s Growing Vegetable Soup: “I like the book because it does a lovely job of illustrating the entire process of growing vegetables from seed to harvest. It also demonstrates a healthy, tasty and veg-friendly meal at the end of the story: soup.”

Huyen MacMichael adds: “My pick would be the fun Sandra Boynton books such as Moo, Baa, La La La, Blue Hat, Green Hat, The Going to Bed Book, and What’s Wrong Little Pookie. They star humorous, colorful animal illustrations with topics that appeal to the younger age kids. The stories are short and sweet with a little bit of learning (like colors or emotion).”

As for me, I have to go back to one of the first books I ever reviewed on Vegbooks: Who Is the Beast? Not only does Keith Baker’s charming board book emphasize that we’re all animals, but I continue to be captivated by its beautiful illustrations.

p.s. – Interested in what we were talking about this time last year? Books for one-year-olds, of course! Read our picks here.