30 Read Aloud Board Books to Encourage Your Picky Eater to Eat Healthy Foods

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Many toddlers are picky eaters. If your tot is not a picky eater, consider yourself lucky! One way to encourage your kiddo to eat a wider, healthier variety of food is to read them books that encourage them to do so.

Check out this list of 30 read aloud board books that will encourage your tot to try new healthy foods.

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You’ll also enjoy this list of read aloud books to encourage your tot to potty train!

1. Eat Your Colors (Rookie Toddler) by Amanda Miller

A bright and colorful rhyming book that encourages tots to eat fruits and veggies. The fruits and veggies are vibrant and grouped by color, with lots of descriptive words to make them sound extra exciting and tasty. Each page includes a simple activity to engage your tot, like finding hidden objects, counting specific objects, and finding specific produce.

2. Rah, Rah, Radishes!: A Vegetable Chant by April Pulley Sayre

Cheer on these colorful veggies in this fun rhyming book! It’s hard not to root for these veggies with the sheer enthusiasm they are introduced with. Check out all kinds of veggies, some of which you’ve probably never even heard of!

3. Go, Go, Grapes! A Fruit Chant by April Pulley Sayre

Is it fruit your tot is avoiding? Cheer on these colorful fruits in this rhyming fruit chant! Photographs of vibrant fruits at farmstands might help at least peak your tot’s interest about some of these fruits, and introduce them to some new ones.

4. The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s Garden Picnic: A Scratch-and-Sniff Book by Eric Carle

Who doesn’t love a scratch-and-sniff book?! Have a little picnic adventure with the Very Hungry Caterpillar and sample sniffs from lots of food fresh from the garden. Sniff a banana, apple, grapes, orange, watermelon, and more. A big part of taste is smell, so exciting your little one’s olfactory senses might just intrigue them enough to try some fruit straight from their own garden!

5. Edible Colors: See, Learn, Eat by Jennifer Vogel Bass

Practice your colors while enticing baby to check out veggies of all colors of the rainbow! Brilliant photographs of real vegetables truly paint them in a new light. Sometimes, just having your tot see them in a different way, as representative of different colors, can entice them enough to give them a try.

6. Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

A brilliantly colorful book about fruits and veggies of the alphabet. Depicting healthy foods in bright and colorful illustrations makes them seem more exciting! You could use this book as inspiration to have your tot practice their alphabet by pointing out the first letter of the foods on his or her plate.

7. Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas by Aaron Blabey

A hilarious rhyming book about a piranha that just wants to enjoy a little fruits and veggies, but is not allowed because he’s a piranha. Using a little reverse-psychology never hurts in enticing kids to eat healthy, right?! This book had me laughing out loud. “Hey, there, guys, would you like a banana?” “What’s wrong with you, Brian? You’re a piranha.” “Well, how about some silverbeet?” “Are you serious, Brian? We eat feet.”

8. Mealtime by Elizabeth Verdick

“One big rule for mealtime: Always try one bite. You just might like it!” This is a great book to teach your tot about mealtime manners, and also to encourage them to try new foods. Toddlers can be SO stubborn about trying that first bite, so if you can encourage this as a mealtime rule, then getting your tot to try new foods will be a LOT easier! This book also teaches the importance of washing your hands before eating, saying thank you, the importance of fruits and veggies to make us grow strong and healthy, saying “please” and “thank you,” and wiping up after a meal.

9. Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert

Never has vegetable soup sounded like such a delight! Learn how to “grow vegetable soup” by planting a vegetable garden, watering it, and watching it grow. Finally, learn to harvest it and wash and chop up the veggies and finally, turn them into a big steaming pot of yummy veggie soup! This teaches children the concept of appreciating the food you’ve grown from your own garden (which always makes it taste better, doesn’t it?).

(Check out board books about gardening here!)

10. Mrs. Peanuckle’s Fruit Alphabet by Mrs. Peanuckle

Make fruits fun with this book about fruits of the alphabet. Teach your tot about all kinds of different fruits, many they probably haven’t heard of! With bright colors and lots of interesting facts, your little one is sure to at least take an interest in fruit (and they’ll get to practice their ABC’s while they’re at it!).

11. Mrs. Peanuckle’s Vegetable Alphabet by Mrs. Peanuckle

Is it veggies your toddler needs some encouragement with? Teach your little one about all kinds of veggies in this vibrant, colorful alphabet book.

12. Llama Llama Yum Yum Yum!: A Scratch-and-Sniff Book Board book by Anna Dewdney

Who doesn’t love a scratch-and-sniff book?! Encourage your toddler to eat a good variety of foods in this rhyming book. Follow Llama Llama throughout his day as he eats a healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks between. Scratch-and-sniff each meal to your child’s delight!

13. Play with Your Plate! (A Mix-and-Match Play Book) by Judith Rossel

An engaging, interactive book that let’s your child choose what’s on their plate. The book is made of mix-and-match flaps so they can mix a variety of foods, and prompts are given to also choose fruits of specific shapes, etc. This is a great book to encourage some variety on the plate.

14. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Show your little one that even the Very Hungry Caterpillar eats a good variety of healthy foods! The bright, colorful pages of food with little holes and varying page lengths make food look exciting! The Very Hungry Caterpillar does not discriminate–he eats all kinds of fruit, veggies, dairy, meat, and basically something from every food group. It never hurts to encourage a bit of variety in your tot’s diet.

15. Yum Yum Baby: First Words for Little Foodies by Rosalee Wren

Introduce your little one to all kinds of healthy foods in this simple, padded board book for little hands. Teach them words to associate with these healthy foods, like “berry” and “smooth” for yogurt, and “sweet” and “crisp” for apple.

16. Soup Day: A Board Book by Melissa Iwai

Join mother and daughter as they spend the day making a yummy, healthy, vegetable soup. See how they pick out the best, brightest veggies and take them home and chop them up. Watch how they first soften the onions, carrots, and celery, then add the stock and the rest of the veggies. Help the daughter choose which noodles to use. Not only does this book encourage healthy eating, but also encourages kiddos to enjoy helping out in the kitchen and learning to cook!

17. ChopChop I Made This! by Sally Sampson

Teach your tot how to make their very own healthy snack and meal with this perfect little cook book! The “recipes” are very simple and healthy, such as mashing a banana with a fork on a whole grain waffle. Empower your tot to fix their own snacks and encourage those snacks to be super healthy AND yummy!

18. Learning with Llama Llama colors by Anna E. Dewdney

A sweet rhyming book about a kid Llama who enjoys making art creations on his plate, made of healthy food. Llama finds fruit and veggies of all the colors of the rainbow and turns them into a little portrait of his mom in the end. Your little one will get to practice their colors, while looking at fruits and veggies from a new point of view. “Orange carrots come in handy, so he tries nature’s candy!”

19. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett

Struggling to add some variety to your tot’s meals? Entice them with this silly classic. The sky will soon be raining with a scrumptious breakfast of toast and eggs, a lunch of hotdogs, corn, and bread, a whopping mound of pancakes, pasta, giant burgers, pizza, oh my!!! If your little one is stuck on three meals a day of chicken nuggets or pb&j, use this story as a way to make other foods seem more exciting.

20. Busy Little Hands: Food Play!: Activities for Preschoolers by Amy Palanjian

Engage your toddler with this activity book about preparing healthy snacks and meals, such as smoothies, noodle bowls, trail mix, porridge, and more! Promote healthy eating and habits while teaching your little one how to cook, empowering them to feel a sense of independence when it comes to food preparation.

21. Indestructibles: Baby, Let’s Eat! by Amy Pixton

Entice your baby to try foods from all colors of the rainbow with this Indestructible book–which is great if it’s going to be around food! With each turn of the page, learn about yummy, healthy foods of a different color of the rainbow.

22. Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli

A silly book of things that are yummy to eat, like blueberries, soup, and spaghetti, and things that are yucky to eat–things little ones often TRY to eat. These include boogers, soap, blue crayons, ear wax, sand, and lots more things to make your little one giggle. This is more of a fun “do’s” and “don’ts” of things that are food and are definitely not food.

23. The Very Berry Counting Book by Jerry Pallotta

Familiarize your tot with all sorts of berries while practicing their counting! 1 yummy raspberry, 2 sweet strawberries, 3 ripe blueberries, etc. If they’re not sold on berries, this might encourage them to try a new sweet healthy treat. Use this as inspiration to take a trip to your local pick-your-own berry patch, and have your little one experience the joy of fresh-picked fruit!

24. My Little Bento Box: Colors, Shapes, Numbers: by Insight Kids

An interactive, educational, and multicultural book about a bento box, which is a Japansese lunch box. Bento boxes are used all over the world, so these are filled with lots of yummy, healthy foods. Have your toddler learn about new foods and practice their colors, shapes, and numbers by sorting the foods into the correct spots in the bento box to match specific shapes and colors, and seeking and finding various colors and foods.

25. Eat Up, Triceratops by Sabina Gibson

Mixed-media illustrations of cute little felt dinosaur photographs and colorful foliage are sure to charm any dino-lover! Show your tot that even dinosaurs like to eat healthy foods so they can grow big and strong.

26. Mealtime: A Pull-the-Tab Book by Alice Le Henand

A pull-tab book about kids learning respectful and healthy mealtime manners and habits. Pull the tab to see reluctant little animal kiddos go from “not interested” in their food to happily eating, from washing hands to sitting down at the table to eat, from standing to sitting down to eat, etc.

27. My First 100 Food We Eat by Wonder House Books

The perfect first book of food words for babies and younger tots. Expand your little one’s food vocabulary by using vibrant photographs of healthy foods to point out and name familiar foods. Ask your little one to point out the foods that they recognize on each page. “Where’s the apple? Where’s the broccoli?”

28. Food Faces by Deanna F. Cook

Silly animal faces made of healthy foods are sure to charm your little one. If your tot loves animals, this one is for you! Practice various animal noises while pointing out all the healthy foods each face is made of. Kids always like food better when it’s in cool shapes, right?

29. Tacos!: An Interactive Recipe Book (Cook In A Book) by Lotta Nieminen

Tacos can actually be very healthy, especially if prepared with lots of fresh veggies! This activity book allows older tots to practice preparing meals. Removable pieces, like a faux knife and felt food pieces, along with prompts, show your tot how to prepare healthy foods for themselves. A great gift for families who love cooking together!

30. Allie’s Garden by Sabra Chebby and Marla Osborn

Join Allie as she picks fresh veggies from the garden in this fun rhyming book. The charming illustrations are a mix of doodles and photographs of real veggies. While picking fresh veggies from the garden, you’ll meet a bunny made of potato skins, a crow made of eggplant, and more. Encourage your tot to pick and eat their own produce from the garden!

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