Though we buy our daughter used books throughout the year—dozens during the library dime sale!—we usually try to get one or two new books that we know she loves for Christmas and/or her birthday. (One year, we bought her a few for her Valentine’s advent, and she really loved those.) We haven’t bought this year’s books yet, but one of the top contenders is definitely Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Little Pea.

For one thing, our daughter loves the book—and when you know your child loves something to begin with, it makes it all the easier to buy. We had the chance to read it on LookyBook.com. Unfortunately, LookyBook is now no longer in service, so we can’t just visit the website every day to read it. It’s been a while since we’ve read Little Pea, so I’m sure it would be a delightful surprise.

The main reason, of course, is that Little Pea is an adorable book with a universal message. It’s the story of Little Pea, a happy little green pea who loves his parents, likes to play with his friends, and enjoys rolling down hills. He is very much like a normal human child.

He’s also like a child in his eating habits. However, instead of protesting mandated dinner vegetables, he hates to eat his pea dinner—which is candy. Little Pea has to eat five pieces of candy before he can eat his favorite dessert, which happens to be spinach. (I know, a pea eating spinach seems kind of weird, maybe even morbid, depending how you look at it, but it’s still cute!)

 As Little Pea eats his candy, makes faces and generally complains just like a toddler would, my daughter always laughs and says, “Silly pea.” It’s just really fun to read out loud, and would be a great book for beginning readers since there’s not a whole lot of text to read to begin with.

Jen Corace’s illustrations are also particularly pleasing. While the pages are stark, with a couple of small images on each one, the images are very, very cute, with inks and watercolors depicting the sweet little pea and his family. The peas are made up of only peas for heads, and though they don’t have bodies they still make for adorable little round pea-people.

Whether your child is a picky eater or ready to eat his or her plate, chances are he or she will enjoy this story of a kindred soul who just happens to be a vegetable.