Review of "Macie and the Magic Veggies" by Peter Contardo

Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)

Are you ready for a veggietastic, whimsical adventure that celebrates the works of farmers while highlighting the extraordinary miracle of growing our foods?

Macie and the Magic Veggies is a colorful, vibrant, and charming children's book by Peter Contardo. It serves a wonderful educational purpose in teaching kids about where the fruits and vegetables we eat come from.

It's actually a bit like From the Farm to Our Table by Sarah Rowe, in a sense, though Rowe's children's book focused more on animal products.

Join Macie, a spunky, curious, precocious little girl, as she takes her grandfather's advice to learn about how farmers plant, nurture, grow, and harvest their crops.

She meets up with Farmer Lundyn, a beautiful, freckle-faced, green-eyed female farmer, who shows her all the things that vegetables (like carrots) need to grow. We learn about how vegetables need soil, water, sunlight, and—above all—love.

This book really highlights the love and care that farmers put into their work.

Macie is even able to participate in the farming process, becoming elated at the fruits of her labor by the end of it.

Something we really loved about this book is how it incorporated animal characters in the background. Rather than them being distracting or seeming tacked on, this book uses these animal characters to add some insight. In other words, they serve both as eye candy and as part of the educational process. For example, the butterfly says that "If you grow them, we will come." We learned from Cora's Garden Rescue by Sally Kashner that plants and bugs (like butterflies) have a mutually beneficial relationship.

Speaking of eye candy, the characters are very eye-catching and look beautiful. Macie is adorable with big blue eyes, a baby-like face, and a blonde ponytail on one side. Her overalls/Farmer Johns really match the farming theme of the book. Meanwhile, Macie's mom is gorgeous, looking a bit like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Grandpa and Farmer Lundyn look friendly and welcoming, like people we'd love to hang out with.

Check it out on Amazon!