Come Thursday, many of us will don our cozy sweaters and sit down with family and friends to feast on roast turkey with wild rice stuffing, mushroom gravy, creamy mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes or yams, green bean casserole, and soft, fluffy dinner rolls (lots of butter, please!).

As we express gratitude for our bountiful meals, we should particularly remember the people who helped bring the food to the table. Thank a Farmer by Maria Gianferrari and Monica Mikai (Norton Young Readers, 2023) introduces us to about a dozen different types of farming, essential farm workers, and methods of planting and harvesting on commercial as well as family farms.

The book opens with a dedication page depicting a variety of colorful dishes with the words, “If you like the food on your table, THANK A FARMER.” Continuing with variations on this tagline, double page spreads feature familiar foods such as bread, milk, fruits, veggies, peanuts, rice, mushrooms, and maple syrup, in addition to one non-edible item, wool.

Gianferrari’s lyrical text is rhythmic and succinct, as dynamic and efficient as the processes described. Paired with Mikai’s warm and inviting illustrations, it’s easy for kids to connect what they eat every day with where it actually comes from — not a can, box, or supermarket shelf, but a farm, where real people work the land with their hands or specialized machinery.

First there’s breakfast, a girl eating bread while wheat is being harvested from combine to hopper, then into grain cart and storage elevator for milling and grinding into flour.

Prefer cereal with milk? Here are dairy farms, where cows are milked by hand or by machine.

Next, several beautifully composed spreads are devoted to fruits and vegetables (leaves, seeds, stems, flowers, bulbs, tubers). We see seasonal farm workers picking leafy greens, digging up potatoes, hand-picking tomatoes and berries. It’s interesting to see a hydraulic tree shaker being used to pick cherries.

If there are berries and
cherries in your bowl,
THANK A FARMER.

Farm workers follow
The sun
and the seasons.
Berries bloom
On the vine,
Ripe for picking:
Pinch.
Pluck.
Pull.
Fill the punnet.

Time for lunch. Like peanut butter and jelly? THANK A FARMER. We learn how peanut plants are pulled up by diggers and dried before pickers remove pods, then pop them into a hopper so they can be roasted and ground into peanut butter.

Then there’s rice, planted by fast-flying planes, harvested by machines, and wild rice, harvested entirely by hand. We have farmers to thank for all kinds of rice, “fluffy and filling,” whether we like it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Kids will be fascinated to see how mushrooms are cultivated — in compost beds stacked on shelves. Next time you pull on your warm and cozy socks, think of the dedicated sheep farmers shearing their flocks each spring so we can have our winter wool. Like maple syrup on your pancakes? Thank First Nation and Indigenous peoples for showing colonizers in Canada, New England, and the Great Lakes regions how to tap sugar maple trees for syrup.

In urban areas considered food deserts, vertical farming can help make fresh-picked produce available via rooftop hives, hoop houses for hens, hanging baskets of fruit, vining vegetables, produce grown indoors on shelves, or greens growing “Up,” hydro-aero-aquaponics. Let’s not forget schoolyard plots and backyard pots. No matter where you live, so many different ways to grow food!

The narrative ends with lyrical words from the farmers’ point of view. What are they thankful for?

Farmers are thankful
for their helpers:
People planting
And picking.
Animals carrying,
Growing,
Giving.
Machines plowing,
Planting,
Plucking,
And harvesting.

Farmers are thankful for --
Soil and sun.
Water and worms.
Birds and bats,
For butterflies,
Bees,
And even trees!

In the final double page spread, young and old shop at a farmers market. Oh, the glorious largesse of fresh bok choy, Roma tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, strawberries and more!

In both words and pictures, Thank a Farmer celebrates the power of food to bring people together, whether they are cultivating, harvesting, sharing, or eating it. I like how Mikai juxtaposed depictions of kids eating the foods with larger scale farm scenes, a clever way to make food origins engaging and relatable, showing producer and consumer in the same illustration. Her diverse cast of characters speak to inclusion, cooperation, and community, reminding us of how we are all interconnected and dependent on the land, nature’s bounty, and of course the farm workers who feed us.

Back matter includes notes on the farming methods included in the book and resources (books, video, websites) for further study.

Another helping of mashed potatoes? Pass the green bean casserole! Yes, I’ll have another dinner roll, please. Come Thursday, when I enjoy these foods once again, I’ll express my gratitude for the dedicated farmers and farm workers who made my meal possible. Right now, I’m thanking Maria and Monica for creating this joyful, informative book. 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

*

THANK A FARMER
written by Maria Gianferrari
illustrated by Monica Mikai
published by Norton Young Readers, September 2023
Nonfiction Picture Book for ages 4-8, 48 pp.

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*Interior spreads text copyright © 2023 Maria Gianferrari, illustrations © 2023 Monica Mikai, published by Norton Young Readers. All rights reserved.

**Copyright 2023 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.