Each of these nonfiction picture books has something special to offer children. Most children love reading nonfiction picture books as a way to learn about the world around them, and even adults like me can learn new information from these books! Each book would make a fabulous addition to any classroom or home library.

I loved “There’s No Such Thing As Vegetables” by Kyle Lukoff and Andrea Tsurumi. As Chester goes to the vegetable garden to pick some produce for their dinner salad, he is confused by the response he gets when he sees a cauliflower and says, “Yay! I found a vegetable!” Cauliflower denies being a vegetable. Poor Chester keeps looking after carrot also denies vegetable status. When he finally confronts a group of “vegetables” about their vegetable status, they tell him that he’s been fooled, and that there is no such thing as a vegetable. What we learn from this very clever book is that broccoli (and cauliflower) are really flowers. Potatoes, radishes, carrots, and others are really roots. Kale and lettuce are leaves, and eggplant, cucumber, pepper, and tomato are really fruits. There’s humor as Chester attempts to prove that vegetables do exist, but the produce has a response for each claim. Children will learn that beets are used to make sugar, and how each kind of produce contributes to the environment. We learn about “semantic satiation,” which is when you say the same word over and over until it sounds silly. I never knew there was a name for that! Also really important is to read the author’s note at the end about social constructs. It’s maybe just as important as the rest of the book. Teachers will LOVE this book!! I do! In a classroom setting, I would make this a science project for students. I’d have them classify the vegetables mentioned in the book and then have them think of more vegetables and which category they’d be in. It would be a great chance to study how the capillaries in celery work at drawing up colored water. I’d bring in a big plate of vegetables (which we now know don’t exist) and have students try new ones. The possibilities are endless. (Henry Holt and Company)

New York Times Bestselling author Rachel Ignotofsky wrote and illustrated two nonfiction picture books that will enthrall kids for hours as they peruse the detailed and information-filled pages. “What’s Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon?” is an almost mesmerizing book that highlights the similarities and differences of butterflies and moths. Some of the writing is virtually poetic. One page says, “Butterflies soar in the sunlight.” The facing page has the text, “While moths flutter under the moon and stars.” Butterflies are featured on a light-filled page with labeled illustrations of different butterflies, and moths are shown on a black, star-filled background with illustrations of different moths, including the brilliant garden tiger moth and a sheep moth. I did not know that butterflies and moths were around before dinosaurs! Kids might also be fascinated to learn the four different life stages of moths and butterflies, all beautifully illustrated. Every page draws the eye, and every page is filled with easily accessible information. (Crown Books for Young Readers)

Another book by Rachel Ignotofsky is “What’s Inside a Bird’s Nest?” This delightful picture book has the same shiny gold lettering on the front for the title and the same exuberant illustrations as the previous book. Each page has a plethora of information about birds, and each features illustrations of different birds, all carefully labeled. On the page about bird parents finding food for their babies, we see an Andean condor high in the sky, a rainbow lorikeet flying through a rainforest, a gentoo penguin diving under the icy sea, a cliff swallow swooping down from cliffs, a great horned owl hunting at night, and a mute swan in the water. Different types of birds; different habitats. Readers will learn about the many kinds of nests from up high to underground. Some birds weave nests, some use tree hollows, some build nests. And there are almost as many types of eggs as there are kinds of birds! We learn what’s inside an egg and how it develops as well as the stages of a baby bird. Ignotofsky doesn’t talk down to picture book readers and uses vocabulary that will make older readers feel that this is an entirely appropriate read for them. For example, “Birds that mature after hatching are called altricial.” The final message in both these picture books is about how important it is to protect the environment so that creatures like birds, moths, and butterflies, and indeed, all animals, might thrive. (Crown Books for Young Readers)

“The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants” by Philip Bunting is a book whose pages seem rich and glossy, and with text and illustrations that manage to be informative, easy to read, clever, and even, at times, humorous. Honestly, you’ll keep turning the pages not only because you want to see what’s next, but also because you want to feel the smooth cool shiny paper as you move the page. The colors are bold and so is some of the text. Children and adults will learn a lot about ants. I did not know that there are 10 quadrillion ants, and that number is written out across one full page spread plus the next page, with large zeroes and a bright green background. Bunting shows us what ants love (family, recycling, micronaps) and what they hate (magnifying glasses, the cold, anteaters). We learn that ants live in groups and rely on each other. To go into detail about all the ways this book is really special, it would take more space than the book actually does. The humor, the information (even about pheromones), and the illustrations all combine to make this a really special picture book that kids and adults will adore. (Crown Books for Young Readers)

Using picture books in the classroom is an unbelievably easy way to get kids hooked on reading. Just find out what a student is interested in and show that student a book about it. It just takes the right book, and the student will be hooked! These books will be popular on any bookshelf, whether it be a classroom, school library, or home library.

Please note: This review is based on the final, hardcover books provided by the publishers, for review purposes.