Buying children’s books

I buy a lot of children’s books.  I started collecting them for my own future-children many years ago when I was working in a suburban bookstore, and I’ve continued since.  But it turns out this is a lot more complicated than expected when you live by a certain ethical code and intend to raise a family the same way.

My family will be vegan.  This is something which can be more easily understood by older children, but for younger kids I suspect it will all be a grand mystery of ‘why can’t I eat what that kid is eating?’.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that while these kids will respond well to ‘we don’t eat animals’, being constantly reminded of this fact while reading will be difficult.

So I am trying to buy young children’s books – picture books and things – which do not make specific mention of eating meat, farms and milking cows etc.  This is phenomenally difficult – the world of children’s book authors seem to realise that children are naturally drawn to animals and so seem to focus on farms, where we RAISE THEM FOR SLAUGHTER.  Which is conveniently not mentioned.  So it turns out this is a far harder task than I anticipated.

I was happily surprised by “Edwina the Emu”, the sequel to the classic “Edward the Emu”, where after taking a job as a waitress, Edwina is horrified to discover people ordering eggs for their consumption and so hurries back home to protect her eggs.

I suspect that this will be difficult so as I find things I might put them here for anyone else suffering the same dilemma.  Not that anyone reads the posts on here that aren’t specifically about why I am a vegan or boycotting Mitsubishi!