Summer is upon us, and one of my absolute favorite parts of the warmer seasons is the delicious fruit. Some of my favorite summertime memories involve picking berries and baking pies. In honor of the beginning of berry season, I've compiled a list of my favorite children's books about berries!
This picture book, published in 2022, is an absolute masterpiece. Caldecott Medalist author-illustrator Michaela Goade is a member of the Tlingit Nation in Alaska, where the story takes place. A little girl and her Grandma set out to gather food from the land in which they live. First, they harvest ocean food, including fresh salmon, and then enter into an enchanting forest to pick berries. The sparkling berries sing them their song, and the girl and her grandmother sing along.
They create a deep reciprocal relationship with the land, singing to express their gratitude and asking permission before taking just the amount of berries that they can eat. "Gunalchéesh", is how they say "thank you" to the Earth in the Tlingit language. When they arrive home, the family makes many different delicious treats from the berries that can be enjoyed or stored for the winter. At the end of the story, we see the narrator as an older child, leading her younger sister into the forest. "I have so much to show you," she says. The back matter provides more context for the story, which takes place in the author's hometown of Sitka, Alaska, where Tlingit people have been collecting tléikw, or berries, for generations and generations and have cultivated a beautiful tradition of land stewardship.
Little Jolie has a passion for strawberries after her family attends a local strawberry festival, and is determined to grow her own. We follow along in her journal as she explores ways to make her dream of planting her own strawberries come true. After she tries drawing lines on her face to appear older and more responsible, she decides to instead prove her dedication by taking better care of the family rabbit, Munchy, and growing grass seeds in her window. To raise money to buy some strawberry seedlings, she hosts a lemonade stand at her neighbor's garage sale.
Finally, her parents decide to reward all of her hard work by helping her buy some strawberry plants at the garden store! She is thrilled, and rushes home to plant them in the garden beds outside her house. She learns lots about growing, including how to protect the fruit from birds and other hungry animals. When it's finally time to harvest the ripe berries, Jolie has such an abundance that she makes strawberry pancakes, preserves some in the freezer, and even hosts her own "U-pick", where neighbors can come fill a bag up with their own berries. At the end of the story, the family visits a blueberry farm, and Jolie falls in love with a whole new type of berry. Uh-oh!
This is an old favorite of mine, that I was read aloud growing up! Another Caldecott Award-winning picture book, I simply couldn't not include it in this post because it's such a wonderful and hilarious story with such rich, animated illustrations by the author himself. Little Sal and her mother go to Blueberry Hill (yes, just like the song!) to collect some blueberries to preserve for the winter. Sal wanders off, munching berries as she finds them.
Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk!
This is the sound the berries make as she collects them in her little tin pail. Her mother catches her digging in her larger bucket of berries, and encourages her to go find her own to snack on. Sal finds herself sitting in a big bush enjoying berries. Meanwhile, Little Bear and his mother tromp up the hill to eat berries in preparation for the winter. After Little Bear strays a bit from his mother, the two moms confuse their little ones, leading to a big surprise for both of them! At the end of the day, both mothers are reunited with their children and each makes their way down a different side of the hill.
This gorgeous picture book features beautiful illustrations from the author herself. Little Clarence used to go with his Grandma to pick wild blueberries, as she carried him on her back and sang. Now that he is older, they go together, walking and singing as they pick the juiciest berries and scout out clearings where there aren't any bears. Clarence notices all the creatures, insects, and plants around them, hearing all the different sounds they make.
They only take what they need, leaving plenty of berries for the other animals in the woods, and then thank the forest. At the end of this story, there is a recipe for some delicious looking Wild Blueberry Jam. There are so many beautiful words in the Cree language, as the author is of Cree Plains Indians ancestry. I love how simple the text reads and how the narrator incorporates all of the sights and sounds of the natural world. This would be a really great fit for a younger child, but of course, works for any age!
