Practically Green: Your Guide to Ecofriendly Decision-Making by Micaela Preston is exactly what it says, a practical guide to going green.

This is one of the best green books I have read, probably because it isn’t all preachy and because I am a big DIY girl I just love the 30+ DIY projects included in this book.

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But by the time that second (or third or fourth) comes into the picture, you have an older sibling who just might not understand, “Why in the world is mama feeding baby under her shirt?”

If you’re not looking to pick up a breastfeeding doll, halter top and all, you’re probably looking for an engaging way to discuss breastfeeding with your tot.

That is where the book “Mommy Breastfeeds My Baby Brother” was born. Want a chance to win it?

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This book is almost like a science project book. Both my older kids are checking it deciding which fun gadgets and experiments they want to try.

If you do homeschooling this might be a great book for you to get since it is full of green projects, experiments and even some crafty fun.

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We’ve been implementing some elements of the Waldorf style of schooling into our home, however, and one thing that’s emphasized in Waldorf study is the experience of myths, legends, and fairy tales–they speak to us as a people, tell who we are as a culture, and are especially relevant to the emotional language of children, both light and dark. They’re also, like the Earth is Our Mother series of books, seen as connective, showing children their place in their community as a whole. And it’s true that my girls love hearing these cross-cultural fairy tales.

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One of the gifts my son received for his 2nd birthday was a subscription to Wild Animal Baby published by the National Wildlife Federation. The magazine is printed on FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper. Wild Animal Baby is a children’s magazine for the age range 12 months to 4 yrs.

Wild Animal Baby is a wonderful way to get your toddler involved in reading at an early age. The magazine encourages children to get outdoors and appreciate nature. My son loves to get the mail and often asks to check the mailbox for his monthly copy of Wild Animal Baby.

Wild Animal Baby is just the right size for toddler hands. The pictures are bright and engaging and it is filled with several interactive activities for your child. Including I spy, letter/color/shape recognition, songs with illustration motions, captivating stories, child participation and much more.

My son loves to look for Sammy Skunk! I enjoy reading Wild Animal Baby to him because it is  educational and entertaining. We burn up some good time going through the pages and doing the activities.

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“Where the Buttercups Grow” is a great children’s book, and we’re not saying it just because we’re collaborating with the publisher, Aaspirations Publishing, to plant a tree for every copy sold, but because we really think so, and that’s also the feedback we got from couple of kids in the Eco-Libris family we asked to check it out.

This book is beautifully written by Shelley Meyer and vividly illustrated by her daughter Tessa Meyer (in the photo above at the first book launch in Surrey).

Here’s the short version of what this book is about (the longer version can be found here):

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That led to One Small Step, an online resource for reusable, eco-friendly, stylish, and environmentally safe lunch products and food wraps with no BPA, no phthalates, and no PVC.

In addition to eco-lunch containers, reusable sandwich wraps, and environmentally friendly lunch bags One Small Step also carries eco backpacks, EcoStaplers, and Greenciles (pencils) for your back to school needs.

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Make It! by Jane Bull is A Cleaner Greener Book, this wonderful book contains basic information (turning trash to treasure & The 3 R’s), teaches kids how to sort recyclable materials (and focuses on donating to charities).  Then it launches into numerous step by step instructions for making new things from our trash.

If your house is anything like mine, you likely have a multitude of little plastic toy parts.  I’m constantly collecting tiny doll shoes, plastic spiders, bouncy balls, etc… and TOSSING THEM IN THE TRASH.  Not anymore! 

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The Kidzsack comes with a set of 8 washable markers that kids can use to decorate the bags. Then they can be washed and colored again. It’s usable coloring sheet for kids to enjoy.

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On The Day You Were Born is the perfect baby shower or 1st birthday gift. Or even a great thing to tuck away and give to a babe the first time you meet!

On the day you were born the round planet Earth turned toward your morning sky, whirling past darkness, spinning the night into light.

It is truly a modern-day classic, celebrating both birth and the wonders of the Earth simultaneously.

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The Underground Gators is a delightful, imaginative story about NYC alligators that also explains such mysteries as to why school buses are yellow and socks go missing from the washing machine. Booklist writes:

This slapstick picture book begins by dispelling the urban myth about alligators living in the sewers of New York City: “To be honest, nobody has ever really seen them.” Then Casey hedges a bit. Just because there hasn’t been an eyewitness, she reasons, doesn’t mean that the alligators aren’t there. Together, Casey and Munsinger try to make a case for the ’gators’ existence, and the result is this over-the-top, comedic offering. All kinds of mysteries can be explained, it seems, by adding the alligator angle. Why are manholes round? So that the pizzas that alligators love to order can be easily passed through. What do babysitters do after kids go to bed? They play cards with alligators. There is a lot more silliness than sense here, but Munsinger makes it work in hilarious scenes of the endearingly goofy reptiles marching through the human world, from summer school to a child’s bedroom, where they stand in for the tooth fairy.

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What’s wrong with Rumer & Qix?  It’s confusing.  The futuristic names are hard to follow and interfere with the story’s flow.  Just consider the book description:

Rumer, a petite apprentice reporter for the 31st century Global Quotidien with a flair for fashion, loves zipping across Nanjing with her loyal sidekick, Qix, in search of stories. But now, she’s furious with her boss for asking her to cover the exploits of Alfa, the planet’s wealthiest mega-conglomerate. Her parents died in an Alfa accident and she can’t understand how he can be so insensitive. She escapes into the indie networks and soon finds herself puzzling over an image of a bizarre nature sighting. Ever since the flora and fauna were replaced with Alfa’s Syncov™ replicas eons earlier, sightings like this have been routinely dismissed. When ethereal voices relay a message confirming Rumer’s hunch that things are terribly amiss, she slips away on a globe-trotting quest for answers. An epic battle is brewing between Dr. BigCo, the powerful Alfa CEO, and his nemesis, MoNa, the vulnerable matriarch of the cosmos. Will Rumer be able to turn things around before it’s too late?

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And that’s no way to see wildflowers.

My girls and I are very blessed where we live now to have a community that actively grows and encourages wildflowers, and several Backyard Wildlife Habitat homes that demonstrate the beauty of native growth.

I am adamant about the fact, however, that just experiencing a thing is, although critical, not enough. To love wildflowers, we just have to see them, sure. To understand them and be knowledgeable about them and know where they ought to live and how to protect them, we need good books.

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What I like about this book:  It’s produced sustainably.  This fun story carries the message of reuse, which is the ultimate in recycling.  In the story, a box becomes a princess castle and an old blue towel becomes a superhero cape.  This delightful story entertains youngsters while giving them ideas for playtime and teaching a valuable lesson.

Our house is over-run with books because I fully believe in the value of reading.  I also believe that owning books (and reading them together) is vital to a child’s development.  (Disclaimer- Yes we do borrow a lot of books.  We also frequently purchase secondhand books).  If you are looking for a way to shed a few books (to make room for more, of course) or you want to start a service project with your children, check out EnviroMom’s suggestion for reusing old books.

If you own a few books which are beyond repair, here are some tips for reusing much of the book (remember to recycle whatever cannot be reused).

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A 10 year old created clean up and recycling programs in her area, an 8 year old wrote and illustrated a book about butterflies that he sold then donated the money to the World Wildlife Fund, a 12 year old in Abu Dhabi created an awareness campaign about camels who die because of trash in the desert, a 15 helped create a garden and open air classroom that produced over 1000 pounds of organic produce that was used for school lunches and donated to needy families in the area. Another 15 year old in California devised tests for air purifiers that changed California legislation.

And that’s just a sample of what the winners of AFN’s 2009 Young Eco-Heroes Awards have done.

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I have two little girls, and I am NOT a fan of frightening picture books about environmentalism. At my girls’ young ages, their time is best spent learning to know and love nature, as well as internalizing such family activities as recycling and conserving energy, and leaving the bad stuff to us adults for a little while longer.

The time will come, however, when they’re a little older, when they’ll want to understand problems like pollution and extinction and global warming, and it will be my reluctant responsibility to give them some answers (if not some justification—that’s impossible). Although I’m a stay-at-home mom and not a librarian these days, I like to use my library science degree to create these reader’s guides to keep up with the best eco-friendly reading materials accessible to our children. Here are five books that manage to discuss environmentalism, both our earth’s problems and positive solutions to those problems, without being too frightening for young readers:

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This fun book (which I purchased through a Scholastic flier) is filled with experiments to get you thinking (and by YOU I do mean parents as well as the kids).   The book begins with an introduction on problems occurring in the world which impact our global well being.   It is then followed by a section on how to put together an effective Science Fair Project and more than 20 experiments that are related to our current environmental concerns.  Throughout the book, you will find short stories and facts which detail a concern or in “The High Price of Ethanol” points out that a solution (biofuels) we think is better, is actually just as damaging.

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Just as I have little understanding of boredom, I also never find myself needing an activity while experiencing nature beyond hiking and observing; however, children are a different breed. They sometimes need help focusing their energy.  Author Jennifer Ward provides 52 outdoor activities.  From “Playground for Poets” to “Five Fine Forts”, the summer boredom crisis is solved (and these activities are limited to warm summer months).  Furthermore, these games and projects are designed for children ages 8-12.  Here’s an example:

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It is with pleasure that I write this review of special children’s book written by our Green Options colleague and Eco Child’s Play contributing writer Joe Mohr, aka Mean Joe Green!  Not only is Joe a great political cartoonist, he’s a children’s author too.  His new book Go Out!  Go Out! is unique not only because it comes from Joe, but it is also a short book (14 “pages”) designed for your iPhone using istorytime.

From kite-flying to corndog buying, Go Out! Go Out! is a rhyming story that shares a small sample of the wonderful experiences that are waiting for us just outside our own front door.

Joe believes it is important kids get outside, no matter where they live!  I couldn’t agree more, and my family spends most of their days in the great outdoors.

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This post was originally posted on Eco-Libris blog on June 1st.

Soccer is a great game and I used to play it every day when I was a kid. I love the game and therefore I enjoyed every page of our book today that got its inspiration from the (littered) soccer fields and is written by a soccer coach.

Our book today is:

20 Easy Ways to Help Save the Earth

Author: Coach Pedro and Susan Adam-Rita

Amarildo Pedro Rita was born in 1962 and has been playing high level soccer in Brazil and has being coaching youth soccer players in the United States since 1999. Currently he is the Director of Developmental Soccer Program in Ann Arbor, Michigan and author of The Magic Soccer Ball series plus The Boy and His Dream, A Great Soccer Tournament, and 20 Easy Ways to Help Save the Earth. Coach Pedro holds a bachelor degree in physical education and USSF “A” License

Susan Adam-Rita was born in a small city in Brazil where she lived for twenty-seven years. A psychologist in her home country, she continued to pursue her studies and currently is a PHD candidate in the counselor education program at Wayne State University. Susan lives with her husband, Pedro, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Illustrator: Murilo Pruner

Ages: 4 - 8

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published on: December 2008

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