Books about vegetables / plant classification

[Little Green Leaves]

This is a kind of narrow question, but I figure if anyone can help, you guys can.

I get a lot of questions from my kids about food and nutrients. What are cruciferous vegetables? What is a tuber? I think it's because they love reading all the kids' cookbooks we have. The books will have little bits of "healthy eating" information, you know, like a few sentences about what kinds of vitamins are in each vegetable, what family the vegetables belong to, that kind of thing. 

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to have a book around with more information. I guess I'm looking for something on plant classification that focuses on vegetables. Or at least that includes lots of vegetables. I'd like to be able to show them what "brassicas" are and what the larger family is, etc. Right now, I kind of either dodge their questions or I google, and I'd really rather have a book...ideally with pictures..I looked around a little online for book ideas, but I thought I'd also try here to see if anyone has some suggestions.

[Little Green Leaves]

11 hours ago, mms said:

Any gardening book like Rodale’s Organic Gardening should have that info. If they get really into classification, a vegetable seed saving book like Seed to Seed would be even better and more technical.

Thank you!! I had not even thought of gardening books, which just goes to show -- we're in an apartment with no outdoor space. I'll look for the Rodale now.

Yesterday I looked through the library catalog and put a hodgepodge of things on hold, including a book called "Bizarre Botany" and a Deborah Madison cookbook called "Vegetable literacy cooking," so we'll have a nice array. 

[Little Green Leaves]

1 hour ago, mms said:

Julia Rothman’s Food and farm anatomy books are a big hit around here too.

That's a good idea, thanks! We have her Nature Anatomy and it gets a lot of use. I'll look for the others.