Maintaining a diet rich in colorful fruits and vegetables has numerous health benefits, while enjoying brightly hued storybooks is guaranteed to boost any reader’s mood. Appropriately, one of my favorite food-related kids’ titles of 2025 urges youngsters to consume a veritable rainbow of foods. Mabi David’s How Do You Eat Color? (Eerdmans, March 18), illustrated by Yas Doctor and translated from Filipino by Karen Llagas, follows two children and their chameleon pal as they gobble up everything from red beans and blueberries to cantaloupes and dragon fruit. With each page devoted to a different hue, Doctor’s intensely vivid visuals pulse with color and delectably surreal imagery. The protagonists cavort in a forest of leafy greens, ride slices of mango downstream past giant pineapples, and, as night falls, cuddle up with oversize yams and grapes. Move over, Candy Land; healthy eating’s never been so enchanting.

This vibrant work joins an assortment of sumptuous culinary-themed picture books that encourage adventurous eating, speak to the communal power of cooking, and help youngsters grapple with hard truths about the origins of some foods. In Caroline L. Perry’s The Memory Cake (Holiday House, June 3), a youngster visits a beloved grandmother in Malta. Jennifer Bricking’s illustrations of the titular chocolate dessert are scrumptious, but deep meaning is baked into this story, too. Nanna explains that during World War II, cake-making was impossible due to rationing; the first one she prepared after the war was particularly special. Balancing warmly reassuring kitchen scenes with Nanna’s recollections of air raid sirens and hunger, this sensitive tale demonstrates how treasured recipes anchor us through hardship.

Author Winsome Bingham and illustrator C.G. Esperanza have followed up their award-winning Soul Food Sunday with Fish Fry Friday (Abrams, July 8). Each Friday night, a loving Black family enjoys a fish fry, and this week, the young protagonist rises early to help Granny catch the croakers, trout, and catfish that they’ll eventually cook for their dinner. While the fried fish and hush puppies are undeniably tasty, what’s most fulfilling is this pair’s satisfaction at having prepared a mouthwatering meal together. Bingham and Esperanza wring joy from unromantic tasks such as casting a line with a “slimy, squiggling, wiggling worm jiggling on the hook” and “cutting and gutting” their catch; rhythmic prose peppered with spot-on dialogue pairs with dazzling, mural-like artwork for an absolutely festive family gathering.

Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic’s latest also involves a tightknit family bonding over a passion for locally sourced food…and did we mention they’re undead? The characters in her quirky Zombie and Brain Are Friends (Bloomsbury, September 2) farm “grain-fed, free-range” brains, which they sell at a local market. But when young Zeb plucks an especially adorable brain, he falls in love—even as his parents point out that “brains are food, NOT pets.” Laan Cham’s images of a cherubic, rosy-cheeked zombie child romping with his fluffy pink cloudlike companion make potentially grisly fare seem downright sweet, while Lucianovic’s archly funny narrative serves up food for thought about the often blurry line between food and friend; youngsters considering vegetarianism will find a true pal in Zeb.

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.