Vegetarian Era

Victor's Picnic with the Vegetarian Animals Encourages Children to Be Vegetarian

By sister-initiate Ling Gao, Chicago, Illinois, USA (Originally in English)

Through its lively graphics and clearly written text, Victor's Picnic with the Vegetarian Animals by Radha Vignola (Aviva Publishing) helps introduce youngsters aged two to seven to the benefits of vegetarianism.

The book is about a boy named Victor who wants to save the lives of his farm animals by pursuing the noble ideal of being vegetarian. However, since the adults in his life are all meat eaters, he is uninformed about the proper guidelines for following a vegetarian diet.  Victor ultimately gains this important information through a dream in which he attends a picnic with vegetarian animals and shares their food.

The book provides information on topics such as the differences between carnivores and vegetarians and the types of food that vegetarians eat, and features delightful illustrations.

My three year old daughter loves to have the book read to her right before bedtime. And as it turns out, she understands more of its meaning than I imagined. For example, one day she went to the grocery store with her grandmother, who picked out a package of red meat while shopping and told her it was cow's meat. My daughter immediately pointed out, "We shouldn't hurt animals or eat them either."

At the end of the text the author includes a simple rhyme that can be recited with children that begins, "Vegetables, beans and the grains, fruits, nuts and the seeds; these are the foods we eat to satisfy our needs," echoing the Bible's message about vegetarianism as humanity's proper diet: "And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.'" [Genesis 1:29] Thus Victor's Picnic with the Vegetarian Animals espouses age-old vegetarian principles in a colorful, easy-to-read format that can both entertain and enlighten young children.