The books listed are a sampling of the titles available. Ask your Children's Librarian for further suggestions and tell us which are your favorites.
Non-Fiction
- An Egg Is Quiet
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Lavish illustrations accompany lyrical text about all kinds of eggs in the world. Readers will linger over the artwork and discover many fascinating facts. Ages 4-8
j591.468 ASTO - Common Ground: The Water, Earth and Air We Share
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By using a simple parable about sheep and the commons upon which they graze, Bang explains that we humans must learn to use our resources wisely or we will be left with nothing. Ages 8-12. For younger children, My Light (j621.47 BANG)
j363.7 BANG - Tiger Rescue: Changing the Future for Endangered Wildlife
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Detailed introduction to these solitary, adaptable predators, with emphasis on worldwide efforts to help them survive in the wild. Ages 9+
j599.756 BORT - Dinosaurs to the Rescue! A Guide to Protecting Our Planet.
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This down-to-earth book details simple things kids can do every day to help conserve resources and improve the environment. Ages 4-8
j333.72 BROW - Green Thumbs: A Kid’s Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening.
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From re-using milk cartons to making non-toxic bug spray, there are activities aplenty here to fascinate and inspire children to grow their own gardens. Ages 6-10
j635 CARL - How We Know What We Know about Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming
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Discover the science behind the headlines with evidence from flowers, butterflies, birds, frogs and more gathered by scientists around the world. Ages 9+
j551.6 CHER - Redwoods
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A mysterious book transports a boy through a forest of the world's tallest trees and their ecosystem. Ages 5-9
j585.5 CHIN - Come Back, Salmon: How a Group of Dedicated Kids Adopted Pigeon Creek and Brought It Back to Life
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A fifth grade class cleans up rubbish, nurtures coho salmon eggs in a tank, tests water quality, then releases the year-old smolt into the creek...with inspiring results for the whole community! Ages 8-11
j639.3 CONE - The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming
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The authors fully define "global warming," discuss extreme weather conditions and animal extinction, and suggest what you can do to protect the climate. See also: Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming (j363.7387 GORE 2007), adapted from his documentary and adult book. Ages 9-13
j363.7387 DAVI - A Grand Old Tree
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Simple text and colorful artwork celebrate the life cycle of one tree and all the animals that share in its bounty. For older readers: Barbara Bash's Tree Tales series introduces the African baobab (j582 BASH), desert saguaro cactus (j583 BASH), and Indian banyan (j583.962 BASH). Ages 3-7
j582.16 DEPA - The Wolves Are Back
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Learn about the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park and the many beneficial consequences that have occurred. For older readers: Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's When the Wolves Returned (j599.7731 PATE). Ages 6-9
j599.773 GEOR - Nature's Art Box
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Enjoy making 65 easy-to-challenging craft projects, all using readily available natural materials such as shells, pinecones and gourds. Ages 9-13
j745.5 MART - True Green Kids: 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet
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This practical and informative guide introduces four Rs for cleaning up the environment: reduce, reuse, recycle, and rethink, beginning with your own room! See also: 50 Simple Things That Kids Can Do To Save the Earth (j363.7052 FIFT) Ages 8+
j363.7052 MCKA - Organic Crafts: 75 Earth-Friendly Art Activities
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Projects with natural and reusable resources, labeled for younger and older crafters. All encourage outdoor observation and collecting. From the same publisher: Fiona Danks' Nature's Playground: Activities, Crafts and Games to Encourage Children To Get Outdoors (j796.5 DANK) Ages 3-9
j745.5 MONA - One Good Apple: Growing Our Food for the Sake of the Earth
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Pesticides and herbicides can contaminate food and harm people and animals, but Paladino shows how organically grown foods nourish the soil, and us! Ages 9-13
j363.7384 PALA - Why Are the Ice Caps Melting? The Dangers of Global Warming
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Explains the "greenhouse effect" for younger readers and suggests things to do to help keep the earth healthy. Ages 5-9
j363.7387 ROCK - A Life in the Wild: George Schaller's Struggle to Save the Last Great Beasts.f
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Celebrates the 50+ year career of an outstanding animal scientist and advocate for preserving animal habitats worldwide. His study of animals in the wild was groundbreaking. Ages 10-13
j590.92 SCHA - A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder
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Dramatic, magnified photos bring into focus the wonder of water, without which no living thing can survive. Ages 8-11
j546.22 WICK
Fiction
- Green Boy
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While bemoaning the development of a resort on their Bahamian island, two brothers find themselves drawn into a parallel world where over-development has turned everything concrete gray and only the younger boy can save it. Ages 9-12
jF COOP - The City of Ember.
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An unexplained ecological disaster has forced humankind into an underground city. But as the city's life support systems break down, two kids realize they must find a way out. Ages 10+
jF DUPR - Seedfolks
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Told from different perspectives, Fleischman weaves a tale of the growth of an urban community garden. Ages 9+
jF FLEI - My Side of the Mountain.
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Sam runs away from his crowded New York City apartment to live off the land for a year in the Catskill Mountains. Full of fascinating detail of his daily life! See sequels and other environmental titles by this author. (also available in Spanish) Ages 9+
jF GEOR - Flush
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A boy and his spunky little sister uncover a floating casino's dirty secret. Also: Hoot (jF HIAA) Ages 10+
jF HIAA - Judy Moody Saves the World!
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Impatient for results, a third grader learns that while it's not easy, it's very satisfying to help save the planet. (also available in Spanish) Ages 7-10
jF MCDO - The Beasties.
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Why are people who live on the edge of a clear cut forest losing various body parts? Doug and his sister discover the brutal revenge of nature. Ages 9-12
jF SLEA - Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things
Picture Books
- The Sun Is My Favorite Star.
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With colorful illustrations, Asch celebrates the many gifts from our closest star. Ages 3-6
jPS ASCH - Where the Forest Meets the Sea
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A boy tells of his day in the rain forest by the Great Barrier Reef. Superb collage art brings this far away location to life and shows alarming changes that have taken place over time. Also: Home (jPS BAKE); Window (jPS BAKE). Ages 5+
jPS BAKE - Eco Babies Wear Green
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An amusing look at how even the youngest child can participate in earth-friendly activities. Ages Birth-2
jBOARD - Pie in the Sky
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A cherry tree provides safe haven and food for many animals as well as the tasty filling for pie. Ages 4-8
jPS EHLE - Where Once There Was a Wood
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Nature is swallowed by a housing development. But, rather than ending on this dismal note, Fleming gives extensive tips on how to create a nature habitat in your own yard. Ages 4-8
jPS FLEM - One Little Seed.
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Short phrases describe a loving journey from seed to flower. Ages 1-4
jPS GREE - Whose Garden Is It?
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In addition to the gardener, many creatures share the garden, each thinking it is his property alone. Ages 3-7
jPS HOBE - Earth Mother
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While tending earth's plants and animals, an African Earth Mother hears complaints from man, frog and mosquito whose interdependence doesn't please any of them. Ages 4-8
jPS JACK - The Great Trash Bash
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The mayor of Beaston leads his animal citizens in recycling their trash and making the town more beautiful. Ages 3-6
jPS LEED - I Stink!
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A ravenous garbage truck gobbles up trash early in the morning in the big city. Ages 2-6
jPS MCMU - Our Community Garden
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A young girl and her friends participate in their San Francisco neighborhood garden and reap the rewards of a successful vegetable harvest. Ages 3-6
jPS POLL - Welcome, Brown Bird
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Two boys, one in North America, one in South America, insist that their fathers not cut down the trees that are home to a migrating wood thrush whose song they both love. Ages 4-8
jPS RAY - The Lorax
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In his familiar nonsense verse, Seuss delivers an ecological fable about the impact on the environment of cutting down all the trees in an area. (also available in Spanish) Ages 5+
jPS SEUS - Just a Dream
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Tucked safely in his bed, Walter travels into the future at night, seeing problems if he continues his polluting ways. Ages 5-9
jPS VANA - Trashy Town
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Mr. Gilly has a great day cleaning up the garbage in Trashy Town. Ages 2-5
jPS ZIMM
Poetry and Folklore
- The Big Book for Our Planet
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More than 40 authors and illustrators of children's books pay homage to the Earth. Ages 8+
j810.8035 BIG - Looking for Jaguar and Other Rain Forest Poems
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Lush paintings and clever verse bring to life the amazing animals and plants of the world's rain forests. Ages 7-10
j811.54 KATZ - Earth Care: World Folktales to Talk About.
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A noted folklorist and storyteller offers stories, proverbs and sayings that show how human actions affect the earth. Ages 8+
j398.2 EART - The People Who Hugged the Trees: An Environmental Folk Tale
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Retelling of a tale from India in which the villagers at the edge of a desert bravely protect their forest from the Maharajah's tree-cutters. Ages 5-8
j398 ROSE - The Sun in Me: Poems About the Planet
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An anthology of poems from many cultures that celebrates the beauty and awe inspired by the earth. Ages 6-9
j808.9193 SUN - Color Me a Rhyme: Nature Poems for Young People
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Poetic responses to her son's photographs highlight nature's colors. Ages 8+
j811.54 YOLE
Biography
- Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America
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President Lyndon Johnson's wife made her own mark, urging that native wildflowers be planted in cities and along interstate highways and founding the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Research Center in Austin, Texas. Ages 5-9
jB JOHN - Julia Butterfly Hill: Saving the Redwoods
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Read about the young woman who lived 185 feet up in a tree for two years to save it from being cut down. Ages 6-9
jB HILL - John Muir: America's First Environmentalist
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From his childhood in Scotland, Muir found excitement and joy in nature. He walked thousands of miles across America, saw Yosemite National Park created, and founded the Sierra Club in 1892. Ages 5-10
jB MUIR - Rachel Carson : a twentieth-century life
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In 1961, before there was an environmental revolution, biologist Carson published Silent Spring, sounding the alarm about the toxicity of pesticides. Here is her life story, part of the Up Close series. For younger readers: Amy Ehrlich's Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson (jB CARS). Ages 11+
jB CARS - Light Shining Through the Mist: A Photobiography of Dian Fossey
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Chronicles the adventures of the San Francisco native who devoted her life to studying mountain gorillas in Rwanda and saving them from poachers. Ages 9-12
jB FOSS - Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai
- By mobilizing the local women and planting trees, the 2004 Nobel laureate has restored Kenya's ecosystem and economy. See also: Jeanette Winter's Wangari's Trees of Peace (j333.7209 WINT). Ages 5-9
