John Deere: All Around the Farm <small> </small>

What a unique, useful and well done book for young ones Published by the venerable John Deere Corporation in conjunction with Dorling-Kindersley it is quite different from others I have reviewed. [Yes, it does feature Deere's farm equipment, and yes, to a certain extent pushes Jthose products, but it this case it works.]

This 62 page hard covered book, published in 2007, covers just about every aspect of farming you can imagine, and truth be told, for the non farm kid, aspects that they normally would not think of. It is absolutely loaded with more than 200 photographs, all very high quality and professionally done. The text is quite comprehensive, filled with facts, and more or less tells it like it is.

Every phase of farming is covered, from field preparation and planting all the way through harvest and marketing of the products produced. A wonderful rundown of various farm animals, their raising, care and usefulness is covered is surprising detail. The book is absolutely filled with fun and interesting facts. I have to admit that despite the fact I have been around farms, worked on farms and have uncountable relatives and friends involved in agriculture, I learned a few things myself. I love trivia and picked up some good bits in reading this work.

Heavy machinery is featured in detail; something all kids seem to enjoy and relate to. The book goes out of its way to explain what each piece of machinery is, what its function may be and how each is an important aspect of the farming process.

Farming is such a very, very important aspect of our history, culture and indeed, our future, the more our young understand it, the better off we will be. This book is a wonderful starting point, not only for farm kids, but urban dwellers also.

Note: the target age for this work is designated to be between 4 and 8 -- which is about right -- but I must tell you that this work would probably be useful even for children much older.

This work should be a part of every school library. I do recommend this one highly.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

John Deere: All Around the Farm