“Sylvia’s Spinach” is the story of a girl who hates spinach.

She hates the smell, the texture, the color. She hates everything about this leafy mess that somehow finds itself in all forms of food she’s expected to eat.

But one day, her teacher hands her a packet of spinach seeds.

It’s her turn to turn dirt in the school garden. And as she watches her sprout grow into something she can eat, the idea of spinach doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Katherine Pryor anticipated hosting an ordinary story time of her children’s book, “Sylvia’s Spinach,” at the Eagle Harbor Book Co.

But, like Sylvia’s spinach, her story time has grown — into a celebration.

In addition to a reading at 3 p.m. this Sunday, Pryor will join the bookstore in recognizing Bainbridge Island school gardens. She is also encouraging kids to participate in a contest by bringing photos of the weirdest vegetable they have ever seen and the weirdest place they have ever seen food grow.

“I think it’s a really great example of how bookstores can be the pillars of their community,” Pryor said.

The story of “Sylvia’s Spinach” grew out of a visit Pryor made to the Washington State Department of Agriculture a couple years ago. She made the trip as part of a campaign to promote farm-to-school funding, a program run by the WSDA that brings produce from Washington farms into schools.

It supports local farms and promotes fresher, crisper food for kids in Washington. It’s a program whose funding, Pryor said, has unfortunately been threatened every year of its existence.

During the visit with state legislators, a dad stood up to tell about his daughter who hated spinach. There was nothing he could do to get her to eat it.

After his daughter planted the vitamin-rich greens in her school garden, though, she changed her mind.

“He was talking about how those direct hands-on experiences can change the way a kid thinks about food,” Pryor explained.

The idea of a book that could make a lasting impression on children about food was something she had been turning over in her head for a while. And this was the story she had been waiting for.

“One of my hopes with ‘Sylvia’s Spinach’ is that it will give kids very positive early thoughts of fresh foods,” Pryor said.

Unhealthy foods and fast-food restaurants are very good at advertising to kids, she went on to explain. They make it fun.

“I’ve found that gardens are sort of the best way to counteract that,” Pryor said. “A kid may not react well to snow peas on their plate, but if they see it growing in their garden, they’ll want to pull it off and stuff it in their mouths.”

Since publishing “Sylvia’s Spinach” in the fall of 2012 through the small Readers to Eaters publishing company, Pryor has made visits to elementary schools and book stores around the Seattle area. And the response has been more than she could ask for.

“Kids who really resonate with a distaste for foods that are handed to them, they will have a moment of realization, that it isn’t everything they thought in their heads,” Pryor said. “That’s a big moment for a kid.”

At the end of a typical storytime with Pryor, she will have a spinach tasting and ask which of the kids are brave enough to try some fresh spinach.

“By the end of the reading, kids will literally be screaming for spinach,” Pryor said. “I never thought it would be such a promotional tool for spinach.”

Among other initiatives for sustainable food systems, Pryor works with Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Food in Health Care initiative to help hospitals bring fresh food from local farms to in-house patients.