It’s the beginning of summer and Zora is already bored! Looking for something to do, she rode her bike past a store that was giving away zucchini plants for free. Not wanting to pass up free plants, Zora takes a few plants home, not realizing how many zucchinis she will eventually have!!!
First, I like that Zora is finding something active to do. She takes it upon herself instead of the usual, “I’m bored. What can I do?”. Once Zora gets her zucchini plants we learn all about what is involved in taking care of something living that will eventually provide food for the family to eat. Teaching kids how to grow their own food is so important! It’s so much more than just growing something. It’s a great opportunity to look online for some zucchini recipes that your child might be interested in trying, which teaches cooking (measuring, following directions) as well as healthy eating and why vegetables are so good for us. If you’re a teacher at school and you have a kitchen that is accessible, make some zucchini bread with the children and have it for snack. The kids love to be a part of making what they’re eating.
As Zora’s Zucchini progresses, we learn her family is really tired of eating zucchini, even though they have had it fixed many different ways. Not wanting to waste any of her zucchinis, Zora comes up with a brilliant idea — she trades some of the zucchinis with neighbors who are growing other things, gives some zucchinis away (which I think is a wonderful lesson about sharing and helping those who may have less than others) but she also gets neighbors who have a garden to being their extra produce and everyone exchanges, sharing/exchanging and having a lot of variety of foods instead of just one or two things they were growing themselves. Zora’ family helps her make this great idea a reality, which shows what can happen when we work together to accomplish something.
Aside from all the wonderful lessons and themes in Zora’s Zucchini, the illustrations are equally amazing. Very colorful and detailed, the children love the pictures in this book. If you’re looking for a book for a gardening/eating healthy/sharing theme, This book is one you will want to add to your collection. After checking it out at my local library, I went to Amazon and purchased a copy for my personal collection of books that I use to teach with.
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