milk, grass and poo—another information-packed George the Farmer story
/“I’d say that’s udderly fantastic!”
GEORGE THE FARMER – RUBY AND THE DAIRY DILEMMA
by Simone Kain, illustrated by Ben Hood – helloFriday Publishing, 2016
ages 0 to 8 years / picture books + s.o.s.e., s.t.e.m.
We’re all fans of the George the Farmer series. Knowing where food comes from and how it’s produced is empowering. Kids and adults alike need to know the process, and ideally we’d all know how to produce a little food ourselves too. (I’m working on it and every time I succeed in growing a lettuce or two I’m appalled at how little we pay for fresh food!)
George’s stories are information rich and this time we learn about Ruby (who is George’s wife and has featured in the other stories too). She’s an agronomist and is called on to help Alex who runs a robotic dairy.
Sometimes we succumb to romantic ideas of farmers hand-milking a few cows and mysteriously making a living doing so. This book does a great job of showing the reality of modern dairy life— still romantic but high tech at the same time.
Ruby uses technology to come up with a plan for Alex to increase the nutrition and taste of his grass.
But Ruby and George also help Alex uncover a poo-ey problem with one of the cows, which adds to the fun—everyone knows poo* is intrinsically funny!
The power in this book:
The story is vocabulary-expanding, with words like agronomist, robotic, teat, nutrients and more. There’s a neat play on words too when Ruby says, “I’d say that’s udderly fantastic!”
There are a handful of facts about the dairy industry on the back page, just like the previous two books. They’re interesting stand-alone facts but they’re also good springboards for further research.
All the George the Farmer books are great for talking about primary industry and the impact it has every moment of our lives. They're designed to educate and arouse interest—and they’re great as an early introduction to agriculture.
* It's good to talk about poo-ey things—you might like to check out this post about how scatalogical humour helps kids to get a handle on how bodies work and how societies work.
direct from the George the Farmer website.
There's an app too, with a game, some songs and story reading. George and Ruby even come as soft dolls and there are some temporary tatts that Ivy thinks are very cool. We’re looking forward to the next George the Farmer story!
Names in this book – George, Ruby, Alex, Polly,
