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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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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Indoor entertainment certainly has its place but when they get outside to play or just enjoy a sunny day they get exercise and they connect with nature. Richard’s Louv’s book Nature Deficit Disorder is just full of reasons why we need to make a conscious effort to get our kids out of doors.

One simple way to do this is to take story time or homework outdoors.

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The Legend of Honey Hollow

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It’s Tribal Alphabet, a multicultural children’s book presenting the ABCs of indigenous people.

Tribal Alphabet is beautifully illustrated and informative.  From Australian Aborigine to Zulu (and all the letters in between), children and parents learn about each tribe following the alphabetic progession.

Nn is for Nukak

Along the Amazon Basin, the Nukak migrate

A tribe never contacted ’til 1988.

The Nukak hunt monkeys, frogs, and peccaries too,

They fish for piranha in the rivers blue.

But now outsiders have sent in expeditions

And some Nukak suffer from disease and malnutrition.

Coca farmers and armies occupied their land

So the Nukak marched out, bow and arrown in hand.

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If you are teaching your child why eating Vegan is important (and fun!) this is the book for you. Even if you aren’t Vegan you may want to encourage your child to drink his soy milk and gobble up those fresh (organic) veggies, Tommy Tofu and the Veggie Bunch may be just the motivation your child needs.

Encourage some imaginative food play, add Tommy Tofu Saves the Day to your child’s bookshelf. You can purchase the book online for $6.95 from Joanne Rose’s website.

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Vegan Tofu Pumpkin Pie
• Good Books for Good Kids: The Earth is our Mother
• Generation Green

The beautiful photographs by Perter Greste of Miza and her family help tell her incredible tale.  Miza is a young gorilla living in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where just over half of the world’s mountain gorillas live.  In June 2007, park rangers Innocent and Diddy discovered that Miza and her mother were missing from their family group.  They immediately began looking for Miza, as her survival was at stake.  What surprised the rangers was that Kibirizi, the family group’s silverback, also went looking for Miza and her mother.

As the head of the family group, Kibrizi was responsible for protecting the 31 gorillas in his family. Before he began his search for Miza, he took his family high into Mount Mikeno to hide in his absence.  After several days, Kibrizi returned with Miza, but her mother was never found.  Miza’s mother was one of the ten massacred mountain gorillas.  Miza almost died without her mother’s care, but she was adopted by her big sister and learned to eat on her own.

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Rising Above Global Warming is the first children’s book I have read that deals with the denial many adults have about climate change.  I imagine many children try to have conversations with their ignorant parents on the subject, similar to the characters in this book.  Eventually, as the ocean rises, snow melts in the mountains, and the beloved birds leave the town of Terra, Dee Nile realizes climate change is real and happening. The characters then make positive changes, such as planting trees and powering the factory with wind power. Their efforts pay off, and the effects of climate change are reversed.  DeFrancesco explains:

My story is positive.  It empowers children to get involved and not be afraid to act. I want them to know they can make a difference.  The bottom line, it is not too late to do something about global warming. It starts with one person making a difference, then it escalates.

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When she was old enough to realize that an animal was harmed for her food, she made the choice to join me in a vegetarian lifestyle. She was the only vegetarian in her kindergarten class. Now, her best friend has become a vegetarian and her teacher is a vegan. Thus, she was very excited to read a book about a vegetarian dragon!

Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon, written by Jules Bass and illustrated by Debbie Harter, is the tale of the only pacifist, vegetarian dragon in the forest of Nogard. The other dragons ate royal princess, brave knights, and wild boar meat, but Herb had his own vegetable patch. When all the dragons fled to hide from the brave knights who decided to retaliate and capture all of the dragons, Herb was mistakenly imprisoned as one of the meat eating, killing dragons. While he was incarcerated, the other dragons tried to tempt him to eat meat:

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Herb said. “I don’t see it your way, so I’ll take my chances. I don’t ask you to stop eating meat, so why do you ask me to stop eating vegetables?”

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What’s This? A Seed’s Story begins with a bird discovering a seed one winter morning. I anticipated the bird would eat the seed, then deposit its droppings somewhere and begin the plant’s life; however, my prediction was wrong. Instead, a little girl, along with her marmalade cat, discovered it and “planted the seed carefully in a corner of her garden.” My daughter has her own garden, as I believe every child should, so I was happy to see the main character in this book also has her own garden bed. (Fellow writer Beth recently wrote about her child’s birthday garden, but back to our story…)

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