Kourtney Otte, who is originally from Seymour and is studying ag education and ag economics at Purdue University, has written a new children’s book about farming and agriculture called “The Young American Farmer.”
Courtesy of Shelby Whitaker Photography
“The Young American Farmer” is a new children’s book written and illustrated by Seymour native Kourtney Otte.
Courtesy of amazon.com
By C.J. Miller
Hoosier Ag Today
If you have little kids, grandkids or little ones in your life in general, then you may want to order a brand-new children’s book that’s been written by a Purdue University College of Agriculture student that helps teach kids about the importance of farming and agriculture.
Kourtney Otte, who is originally from Seymour, wrote and illustrated her new book called “The Young American Farmer,” which is available now at amazon.com. She says putting her book together from start to finish came about in an incredibly short amount of time.
“I sat down over Thanksgiving break, and the next thing you know, all the illustrations were done,” she says. “I was happy with how it looked, and I was able to get it published.”
Otte, who also served as Indiana FFA state president in 2021-22, says she wanted to share her love of farming and agriculture with young children.
“At the end of the day, agriculture has left such a big impact on me,” Otte says. “I feel like I tend to take it for granted sometimes, so I really want to sit down and look at it through this lens of childlike joy or how a child would look at agriculture if they’ve never seen it before.
“I got a puppy a couple weeks ago, and her name is Millie. She kickstarted the whole idea (of the main character). I thought, ‘If Millie was a kid, what would I tell her about agriculture?’”
She says the main lesson of “The Young American Farmer” is that agriculture provides us with so much more than just the food we eat.
“Agriculture is more than the corn and the soybean fields I grew up with as well as pigs and the cows,” Otte says. “It’s the cotton fields in the southern half of the United States. It’s the grapevines. It’s the apple orchards. So I really wanted to capitalize on all of agriculture so it can kind of bring about those deeper conversations with children about how everything we use comes from agriculture. I wouldn’t be sitting in the Purdue University Memorial Union if it wasn’t for agriculture because of the wood (used in the building), so I think it brings recognition to all these different areas of agriculture.”
Otte says the profits from the book are going to a program to help further ag education in schools.
“All the profits from this book are going to go into this program to help create small urban farms for urban schools, such as vertical gardens and smaller things like that, so these students can actively see, even if they aren’t on a 100-acre farm, they can still be involved in agriculture and they can still grow their own food,” Otte says. “My hope is that the money from this helps students to see agriculture in a different light.”
C.J. Miller is assistant news director for Hoosier Ag Today. This story originally appeared at hoosieragtoday.com. To hear Miller’s full conversation with Kourtney Otte about her new children’s book and her plans of considering writing and illustrating more children’s books about farming and agriculture, visit hoosieragtoday.com/2023/12/13/kourtney-otte-childrens-book.