Foraging books are great to have on hand as a reference. If you plan to bring kids along on any wild foraging adventures don’t miss these foraging books for kids! Foraging with kids can be a whole new adventure, so get them involved with their very own edible plant books. Even reading bedtime stories that have some facts in them will give kids the confidence to identify edible plants!
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Best Foraging Books for Kids
Getting kids involved in nature is something that is really important to me. Knowing what is growing in your area connects you to the earth in the present moment and can’t be replaced by anything else.
Foraging is a passion of mine, and I have learned so much from foraging books myself. Bringing kids out foraging can be a whole new speed for many of us. It takes patience to slow down and see the world from whatever point of view a child is coming from.
I have found these books about foraging with kids, and foraging books for kids, so helpful for me to get to a new level and re-learn everything from a child’s point of view!
When I consider my own foraging experiences, my love for it truly began as a child. I spent so many days picking wild blackberries, sucking the sweet nectar of white clover flowers, and finding cattail shoots in the woods behind my house.
Learning as an adult to empower myself with learning everything I can about edible and medicinal plants, I realized that so many highly useful plants were part of my daily childhood fabric when my days were spent outside from morning until dark. They were right under my feet, literally!
Now I’d like to share what I know with my kiddo, and yours! A great way to do this is teaching while on a tactile wild foraging adventure, but also with books to reinforce what they learn in the real world around them.
Related: 12 Best Books on Foraging and Wildcrafting
Kids Foraging Books
This collection of books is so helpful to have on hand when foraging with kids.
Two of these books, Foraging with Kids and Family Foraging, are geared towards foraging with kids. They would be great for parents or older kids to read and keep in their packs to reference! Both are full of fun plants that are easy to forage.
Let’s Eat Weeds! is one of the best foraging books specifically geared for kids to read by themselves, and is great for learning plant identification of common weeds. It even includes recipes!
It is written by Australian authors, so there are a couple of plants included that don’t grow in North America, but the majority of them do. I checked and only 2 out of 15 plants in the book don’t grow in North America.
A few of the plants have different common names as well, so that’s something to be aware of (fat hen instead of lamb’s quarters, for example). I still highly recommend this book!
Kids Foraging Storybooks
Storybooks are a great way for kids to soak information in! Honestly, they work for me too.
These books all have foraging facts and information presented in various ways, with different elements in each. I find these foraging books enjoyable to read, and the illustrations are phenomenal.
Kids love these books from my experience!
Each of these storybooks makes connections to what we see when we are out and about, and Cooking with Bear even has some really fun recipes using foraged ingredients too.
The Hike has many drawings of plants and fungi, both edible and not, as well as some foraging themes.
Kids Mushroom Foraging Books
Edible or not, it’s super important to learn facts about forging mushrooms! These books are a fun way to learn about different mushrooms, with great illustrations.
For a deeper dive into mushroom foraging and identification geared toward children, this list of the best mushroom books for kids is much more extensive.
In the meantime, these four books are a wonderful start and everyone can learn from them. Mushrooms are undeniably mysterious, earthy, sometimes elusive, and super fun to know how to identify!
Kids Dandelion Books
Dandelions are so easy and available to forage and are very accessible to kids. While these books aren’t specifically about foraging dandelions, they give a lot of great information about dandelions, and how they spread their seeds. All in a positive light, as it should be!
These books all have really lovely illustrations, and outline the true nature of dandelion’s humble strengths and ability to survive and thrive!
Kids Tree Books
Trees are a staple of foraging, and often year-round producers of wonderful foraging harvest including conifer needles, acorns, birch bark, and sap and syrup!
This group of foraging books for kids teaches about tree identification, their leaves and needles, bark, seeds, nuts, and cones.
There’s so much to learn about trees, their varieties are endless, and kids everywhere will be able to make connections with these books!
Kids Nature Books
When it comes to exploring nature, these books are great for kiddos and also include foraging topics!
These books are all nature themed in general, and they all have fun projects to do too!
While these DO include foraging, I also find that kids bring sticks, rocks, pine cones, and beetles, home from hikes. Really whatever they can fit into their pockets! Might as well do a project with them! (Except for the beetles, we let them go kindly.)
For younger kids, I recommend On the Nature Trail. It even comes with a magnifying glass! The other books are great for all ages, young to old.
Kids Herbal Books
These books for kids are all about medicinal plants, and so many of these plants can be and are easy to forage! Herbal Adventures has some great identification information geared perfectly for kids too.
The other great thing about these two books is that they teach kids about how to use herbs for food and medicine, which are wonderful concepts to introduce kids to!
Kids Botany Books
These books are both wonderful general botany books. Nature Anatomy has tons of wonderful illustrations of plants, trees, fungi, animals, and more! It offers a kid geared, exciting and scientific information all about the natural world.
Prepare yourself for a great adventure with Shanleya’s Quest, it includes a ton of plant themes and information about identification. It’s written by Thomas J. Elpel, the same author of the popular book Botany in a Day.
Enjoy Foraging Books with Kids!
I hope this list of foraging books for kids makes great additions to your collection. I always find myself learning more right along with my kiddo!
Thank you so much for posting and sharing this. I just ordered a couple of these books. I began foraging and crafting from herbs last year and really love your site and recipes. I will be homeschooling starting this year and these books will be a great addition to our family library. I bought Family Foraging and Let’s Eat Weeds this morning. Thanks again.
You’re welcome, Emily! Enjoy!
I really love this. This is an area of kids books that I never considered before. Thank you
You’re so welcome, Michelle. Enjoy!
I don’t have children yet, but I’m very excited by the resources you have, these books look great :)