I want to start by thanking NetGalley for this amazing ARC. I have been wanting to start a homestead/hobby farm and while this book describes more about living on a large farm I was able to take away many important points in regards to how farming in general impacts children’s lives. If you are unsure of how to work farming into your everyday life or unsure as to whether you want to and whether your children will benefit from it read this books as part of your decision making process. This book helped me and I know it will help you to.

Thank you NetGalley and Storey Publishing for access to the digital ARC. As a current stay at home parent whose education and experience is animal science and agriculture based I’ve found myself wondering what it might be like to start our own farm. I found this title inspirational, and helpful in visualizing what that reality may look like. I appreciate that many people were interviewed and that everyone’s situation is different. I also enjoyed the added reading list, as this will be a helpful reference to add. I was already planning to homeschool so it’s nice to think that farming could be a secondary source of income for us while still physically raising our children! While this is not a full blown how to farm guide it totally meets the need for folks that don’t have farming friends to ask some of these questions too!

I have always dreamed of running a homestead with my family. As someone currently neighborhood living, but supporting a CSA this gives me big dreams that one day we can have land and give our children this life. I love how encouraging this book was while also not sugar coating that sometimes it will be hard. And love the idea of getting the kids involved in everyday operations. This book gives me hope that one day we can achieve this!

This book is a must read for anyone hoping to raise a family and run a small farm! I am not planning on starting a farm, but it did give helpful tips and encouragement for gardening, or doing other outside chores, with children.
I really appreciate that it had chapters about all of the different stages, pregnancy through young adult, and the farmers interviewed were very diverse in family type, size and farm situation.
The pictures that accompany the book are really lovely and the list of children's books and additional resources are really great!

I requested this book because my husband and I love to grow food, harvest, hunt and in the next few years, start a family.

This book was so good! I absolutely loved getting to know the authors family, and see how kids can unplug and just explore, play and learn outside and off their land.

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC of this book. Okay this book was right up my alley! One of my life goals is to move to a farm to raise my kids and this gives such good advice and insight into that. I also found a lot of good information for people who don’t necessarily live on a farm, but instead a few acres of land. There was also a lot of good information about raising kids in general- most importantly to slow down! I loved this and will likely be purchasing it in the future.

I find this book to be an incredibly important topic today. People have become so detached from the land and their food sources, there are important lessons here not only for farming and homesteading families, but even more so for those who are not. We need to expose more people to this way of living, partly so they understand they have a choice in how they live and how they eat. I would love to see more information about incorporating gardening into non farm families, but this is a great resource for teaching about the farm life.

I read this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book offers helpful suggestions and relatable stories for how to balance life on a homestead with children! There’s stories from families with different situations, different areas, and with kids of all ages so there’s sure to be a chapter (or more) that readers can relate to!

Sometimes it takes way longer to get things accomplished, but by including kids on the homestead it’s teaching them valuable lessons and skills, plus we are spending time together. After it’s become a habit after awhile, they get excited to help and they know what’s expected of them since they each have specific jobs. My two year old still just mostly walks around as we work, but he’s still included, and when he’s old enough, can do more! He currently enjoys dumping food into the dog and cat’s bowls and helping “collect” the eggs. The book contains suggestions for age appropriate chores and each chapter includes discussion questions for the family to connect over!

Personally, I think this book is helpful to anyone with kids and a homestead but it does lean more towards offering encouragement and keys to success to those who make a living from farming or selling things from a large scale homestead.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for my copy.

I found this book to be very helpful for me! I am a mom, married, with 4 children on 15 acres that I aspire to live off of as much as I can. We are also looking to homeschool in the future. This book was very informative on how I can include our kids around the homestead, what I can expect as a parent, what types of books we can be reading to learn from and journaling prompts after every section to help organize your thoughts and goals. Overall, if you have land and want to homestead, or are thinking about buying some and starting, this is a great read to help you find what will work best for you and provide you some solid ideas!

A good reference guide for families in the thick of homesteading or farming or those contemplating this lifestyle choice. Practical suggestions on play, work and schooling while trying to run a family business and /or hobby farm. They breakdown safety concerns and age appropriate help/work/chores. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

Farm-Raised Kids
Katherine Kulla
To really get this book we need to define a CSA farm. Community Supported Agriculture: a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legal or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits. While the farmer benefits from the community support, the consumer benefits by getting the freshest local foods available throughout the year. The consumer gets a ton of produce each week which offsets the original investment.
This is an interesting concept. What I found the most interesting is the discussion of raising kids on a farm. Children learn from watching their parents as well as assisting them. Not all children will be interested in farming but the author has added tips for how to encourage a child’s interest which can be done through chores and play.
Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book for review.

I'm unfamiliar with other books in this genre. This is a great purchase for my rural library, which has lots of large families running farms.

This is a bit more biographical than would maybe be ideal. But it's nice to see all the different kinds of farming families. There are tips and tricks as well as games and other family activities.. The early chapters are structured in reasons why farm life is good for families. Later ones deal more with specialty topics that will apply to some families but not others.

The pictures are lovely.

Thank you to NetGalley and Storey Publishing for the ARC! I will purchase for my library.