That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals By Ruby Roth
It was snack time at the after-school art class, but Ruby Roth avoided the string cheese. When her young students asked her why, she explained that she’s vegan.
Then she began looking for a book written to help children understand what being vegan is all about. But to her dismay, the best she could manage was a silly book featuring a talking tomato.
So she decided to fill the void by writing and illustrating That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals.
I read it to my younger boys this afternoon. The book includes lively illustrations of animals enjoying family life in natural habitats, followed by sketches of others suffering in factory-farm cages.
About halfway through the book, my six-year-old asked, “Why are those animals in cages?”
I paused. “The animals are in cages because people want to eat them,” I finally said.
When I had finished reading, I asked my sons whether they were glad we didn’t eat animals in our home anymore. They both nodded vigorously.
Roth has taken the same message that I have been reading over the last few weeks — the same message that other authors have written hundreds of adult-oriented pages on— and delivered it with a tact, brevity and power sure to move readers of every age.
