Gardening Books for Kids

A complete collection of non-fiction and fiction Gardening Books for Kids! Make a garden theme bookshelf for your garden unit.

Let’s explore the nature-inspired books from the garden with your child.

Gardening Books for Kids

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a FIRM believer in getting kids in the garden to learn and grow. I would also admit that I am a book addict. My Master’s degree is in Reading Education K-12, so you know I’m a fan of reading with and to kids!  

In fact, we have thousands of children’s books in our home. I am trying to be better at whittling down our book stash so our home library doesn’t get too overwhelming, but then I find another one to add to our collection.  

We do not own a television and so the kids read often, especially when I am busy cooking dinner!  For me books = sanity. When building a collection of books for kids with a gardening theme, you do NOT need a ton of books. I have a bunch because I enjoy them immensely, but I also make use of our library and check many out from there as well.

I’ve linked each of these up to our Amazon Affiliate account just in case you decide you want to purchase one.  All Opinions are written on my own.

How to Build a Thematic Garden Book Set

In this article, I will explain how I would make a garden theme “love books basket” for our garden unit. This gets kids reading for depth and breadth on a particular topic and encourages them to explore reading for a variety of purposes. I like to display them in a basket and read them for about a month before rotating to the next theme.

You can also make a collection and then loan the collection to a trusted friend for a month too.  Then your hard work curating the set can be used by more than one family!

Choose 1-2 “how-to” or “activity” Gardening books such as the ones pictured below.

• Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy
• Let’s Get Gardening by DK
• Gardening for Kids: Learn, Grow, and Get Messy with Fun STEAM Projects by Brandy Stone
• Gardening Lab for Kids: 52 Fun Experiments to Learn, Grow, Harvest, Make, Play, and Enjoy Your Garden by Renata Brown
• The Ultimate Step-by-Step Kids’ First Gardening Book by Jenny Hendy
• The Garden Classroom: Hands-On Activities in Math, Science, Literacy, and Art by Cathy James
• Gardening Projects for Kids by Jenny Hendy
• The Book of Gardening Projects for Kids: 101 Ways to Get Kids Outside, Dirty, and Having Fun by Whitney Cohen and John Fisher
• Green Thumbs: A Kid’s Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening by Laurie Carlson
• Square Foot Gardening with Kids: Learn Together by Mel Bartholomew
• Kids’ Container Gardening: Year-Round Projects for Inside and Out by Cindy Krezel
• Touch a Butterfly: Wildlife Gardening with Kids–Simple Ways to Attract Birds, Butterflies, Toads, and More to Your Garden by April Pulley Sayre
• Ready, Set, Grow!: A Kid’s Guide to Gardening by Rebecca Spohn
• The Best-Ever Step-By-Step Kid’s First Gardening by Jenny Hendy
• Fun Gardening for Kids: 30 Creative Outdoor Projects by Jenny Hendy
• Good Growing: A Kid’s Guide to Green Gardening by The Editors of Klutz
• A Kid’s Guide to Regenerative Agriculture by Lauren Lovejoy
• The No-Dig Children’s Gardening Book by Charles Dowding

Add in 4-7 Fiction Gardening Stories

• The Curious Garden by Peter Brown
• My Garden by Kevin Henkes
• Who’s in the Garden? by Phillis Gershator
• How a Seed Grows by Helene J. Jordan
• A Seed Is Sleepy by Dianna Aston
• The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
• Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner
• Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
• The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
• Garden Wigglers: Earthworms in Your Backyard by Nancy Loewen
• We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines
• In a Garden by Tim McCanna
• GROW: How We Get Food from Our Garden by Karl Beckstrand
• Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole
• How Groundhog’s Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry
• From the Garden: A Counting Book About Growing Food by Michael Dahl
• Grandma’s Gardens by Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton
• The Bad Seed by Jory John
• Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn
• We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines
• Grandpa’s Garden by Stella Fry
• Harlem Grown: How One Big Idea Transformed a Neighborhood by Tony Hillery
• The Gardener by Sarah Stewart
• The Extraordinary Gardener by Sam Boughton
• Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden by Edith Pattou

And toss in a bunch of non-fiction text. At least 5 (in my opinion)

• From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons
• What’s Inside A Flower? by Rachel Ignotofsky
• From Seed to Plant by Allan Fowler
• Roots by Vijaya Bodach
• Eyewitness Explorers: Flowers by David Burnie
• Life Cycle of a Sunflower by Angela Royston
• From Seed to Sunflower (Lifecycles) by Gerald Legg
• Carrots Grow Underground by Mari Schuh
• The Big Book of Blooms by Yuval Zommer
• National Geographic Readers: Seed to Plant by Kristin Baird Rattini
• A Seed is the Start by Melissa Stewart
• National Geographic Readers: Plants by Kathryn Williams
• I’m A Seed by Jean Marzollo
• The Vegetables We Eat by Gail Gibbons

Then snuggle in and read with your little ones!  Talk about what you are reading, then head outside to the garden!

For more kids in the garden articles, stop by here. Or visit one of these related articles:

Gardening Activities for Kids

• 10 Flowers to Grow with Kids
• Getting Started in 3 Easy Steps by Birute Efe
• Printable Seed Activities for Kids
• Giving Kids Ownership in the Planning Phases of Gardening by MaryAnne
• Gardening Activity Ideas for Kids

I know I have missed a ton of GREAT gardening books for young readers 0-7.

Which book would you add to your gardening book collection?