Reviewed by Brad Manker
Review Source: Teaching for Change
Book Author: Kyle Lukoff
Kyle Lukoff’s whimsical picture book serves up a delightful dish of humor, science, and social justice concepts. Young Chester, tasked with fetching vegetables for a salad from the community garden, instead encounters a vibrant cast of anthropomorphic garden inhabitants who reject the “vegetable” label. Each insists on being recognized for their true botanical identity — broccoli florets are flowers, potatoes are roots, and tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, and peppers are — you guessed it — fruits. Chester and the reader come to realize that truly, there’s no such thing as vegetables.
Lukoff’s playful narrative unfolds through dialogue balloons, allowing the cheeky plants to explain their important roles to the increasingly frustrated boy. The illustrations by Andrea Tsurumi imbue each with a distinct personality. From the indignant kale to the sassy beet, the characters’ expressions perfectly capture the lighthearted absurdity of the situation. Tsurumi even includes botanical cross-sections so that young scientists can peer inside some of the garden residents.
Just as vegetables are labeled arbitrarily, so too are humans categorized by pronouns and racial markers influenced by deeply-rooted cultural biases. Although Lukoff’s book doesn’t explicitly address these complex themes, it plants a seed, encouraging curiosity about how we identify ourselves and the world around us. The vegetables themselves call each other by their preferred terms and live in complete harmony, as evidenced by the final illustration of them all playing on a playground! This is unsurprising, knowing the transgender author’s recent titles, including the critically-acclaimed When Aidan Became a Brother and Too Bright to See. While the core message might be a bit sophisticated for very young children, the humor is broad enough to appeal to a wide age range.
Overall, There Are No Such Things as Vegetables is a weirdly charming and thought-provoking read. It encourages curiosity about the natural world, delivers a healthy dose of giggles, and subtly introduces the concept of respecting individual identities. It’s a perfect pick for parents and educators looking for a fun and informative way to nurture conversations about food, language, and social constructs with young children.
Brad Manker serves as a fellow with Teaching for Change. He is an educator, curriculum designer, and independent researcher with a background in elementary education.
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There’s No Such Thing as Vegetables by Kyle Lukoff
Published by Henry Holt and Company (BYR) on February 27, 2024
Genres: Read Alouds
Pages: 40
Reading Level: Early Childhood, Grade K
ISBN: 9781250371195
Review Source: Teaching for Change
Also by this author: When Aidan Became a Brother
Publisher's Synopsis: A hilarious new picture book that exposes vegetables for what they truly are—leaves, roots, flowers, and stalks—by National Book Award Finalist and Newbery Honor winner Kyle Lukoff, perfect for fans of the Our Universe series.
Chester plans to have a salad for lunch, but in order to do that, he'll need vegetables. So, off he goes to the community garden, except he quickly learns that he won't be dressing a salad anytime soon. Instead, the vegetables start dressing him down. According to them, "vegetables" don't exist!
I know what you are thinking: What the bell pepper? Vegetables are totally real! But here's the thing: Kale is just a leaf, broccoli is a flower, potatoes are roots, and celery...well, stalks. Thanks to a lively, sassy cast of talking "veggies," Chester learns a valuable lesson about categories and how they shape our understanding of the world.
With a slyly informative text and illustrations that will crack readers up, the schooling in There's No Such Thing As Vegetables will be easy to digest and is a total treat.
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