My friend asked me for recommendations for family friendly seed saving books. I had to admit I don’t know any, all the books I read seem to be pretty technical and aimed specifically to adults.
I’d love your recommendations for any family friendly seed saving books!
Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman had an impact on me as a kid. It’s not at all a seed saving guide, and not even directly about seeds. It’s a lovely kids’ chapter book that tells the story of a community transforming an abandoned lot into a garden. I think it has a great message that illustrates the layered benefits of diverse community engaging with crops and seeds. Seems like it could be more of a gateway to going deeper into seed saving.
Not sure the age range you’re looking for but David The Good’s “Free Plants for Everyone” might be a good option.
It covers all kinds of propagation methods in simple easy to read style and has nice sketches to help visualize.
I feel like “ the Seed Garden” would be good for families cause theres lots of pictures, very concise information I love this books layout, definitely inspired some of my info sheets also contains other gardening tips… I feel like any book that does a good job is going to go in depth, and I think children can grasp the depth of seeds better than adults in many cases so giving them all the information is awesome, who knows what they will do with it!!
There’s some smaller seed saving basics books and one larger one I’ll have to find and tell you the name of later., but i think the pictures in this book the seed garden will capture the imagination better. Ofcourse seed to seed and the organic seed growers manuals are amazing classics but i agree maybe a bit much for younger kids!
Heres an image of part of the layout, I love the yellow rectangle and all the precious info concise and together!
I’m going to have to check out David the Good’s book. For a picture book, Vera B Williams’s (if you were an OG Reading Rainbow kid, you remember her from A Chair for My Mother) Cherries and Cherry Pits is good.
Sounds like this is an opportunity to create a zine (can be printed out at home and folded into a little booklet) describing basic wet and dry processing of seeds. Useful for anyone just getting into seed saving. With the right graphics, a little booklet like that might be appealing to kids. Anyone interested in this project?
Hey thank you everyone that offered some suggestions! My friend will be very grateful with these books to reference for her research project and local education with kids & families.
I’m also excited to look into these books too. While I’m familiar with The Seed Garden, Seedfolks, Free Plants for Everyone and Cherries and Cherry Pits are new to me and sound awesome!
I’m appreciating you all 
