With Earth Day around the corner, you may be looking for a book that celebrates nature for yourself, a student, or someone in your family. Below I've compiled a list of worthy green reads for different aged readers. Along with this list, you can also check out Authors for Earth Day, a coalition of authors who support conservation efforts through their literary work, or Amazon's Great Earth Day Book list, which includes many good non-ficiton titles for children.
Picture Books:
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
The Extremely Very Good Recyclers by Lauren Child
All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon (ill by Marla Frazee)
Middle Grade:
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Flush by Carl Hiaasen
Here Where the Sunbeams are Green by Helen Phillips
Friends of the Earth by Pat McCarthy
Young Adult:
Wildflowers by Rhonda McCormack
Toms River by Dan Fagin
Moonbird by Phillip Hoose
or
follow the Lawrence (KS) Public Library flowchart for
dystopian & ecotopian novels
Adult:
Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
The Universe Within by Neil Shubin
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
Happy Earth Day Reading and Remember...
As the Writes blog enters the last week of its Earth Day celebration, I'm happy to share space with educators, librarians, students, and any readers who would like to stop by and comment on all things good and green. It'd be great to hear what's going on with curriculums, classrooms, and reading lists, as well as any work being done in schools (or communities). Planting gardens, trees, recycling, water conservation, learning about the inner workings of our planet and how to operate in synergy with nature...please share anything and everything you do, have done, or plan on for the future. Sharing is welcomed for all grade levels, preschool to high school.
As thanks for your participation, anyone who submits a comment between now and Earth Day (April 22, 2013 midnight) will be entered to win a wildflower gift pack (see below) or one of four signed copies of wildflowers.Please note that a separate Goodreads Giveaway runs through Earth Day, and free Kindle downloads of wildflowers will be available on April 22.
wildflower gift pack includes:
1 signed copy of wildflowers
1 12x12 original painting,
recycled mixed media on canvas
1 travel-size orange moleskin journal,
1 hand-crafted bookmark
blog giveaway winners will be drawn on 4.23
**please note**
**please note**
wildflowers is rated PG-13
If you wish to participant and you're under the age of 18, please get your parents permission. Kids and teens should only use first names or initials when commenting, and if one of these participants win a drawing, alternate gifts will be awarded. Winners under the age of 13 will receive the middle grade novel, Here Where the Sunbeams are Green by Helen Phillips and for those under the age of 8, the picture book All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon will be gifted. Please indicate your age when commenting to receive the appropriate prize.
I LOVE!!! The Lorax!!! But I have to admit I saw the movie version first. I was completely lost in the movie and therefore, within the mind of a child, I didn't realize the underlining meaning of the story till a good part of the way through.
ReplyDeleteThe Giving Tree makes me sad, so I don't like to read it.
Karin, I've heard this before about The Giving Tree, and I like to think Silverstein intended to invoke a strong enough feeling to get children to ask questions about appropriate giving. As for the The Lorax, thank you for sharing your experience with book versus movie. It's a book I grew up with and the movie version I saw as a child followed the book closely. That book also created strong feelings for me. Maybe that's where my Tree Hugger roots come from. :)
ReplyDeleteI would put The Lorax in my top ten movies actually. There was such a peace, for some reason, while I watched it. I have since watched Dr. Seuss based movies and none of them had the same effect.
ReplyDelete