Find lessons and additional resources for teaching about climate justice and the environment at the Zinn Education Project (coordinated by Teaching for Change and Rethinking Schools.)

Titles that we recommend are featured below. The ones with reviews are noted with an asterisk (*). Some titles are recommended with a caveat. At the end of this page, we provide a list of titles on this theme, with reviews, that we do not recommend.

Also see these related booklists: Food and Water Justice, Healthcare, and Nature

Elementary | Middle School |  High School | Adult | Educators | Learn More | Not Recommended 

111 Trees: How One Village Celebrates the Birth of Every Girl

By Rina Singh and Marianne Ferrer (Illustrator)

Aani & the Tree Huggers

By Jeannine Atkins

Ajijaak - Crane*

By Cecilia Rose LaPointe

Alicia and the Hurricane: A Story of Puerto Rico / Alicia y el huracán: Un cuento de Puerto Rico *

By Leslea Newman and Elizabeth Erazo Baez

The Bee Tree

By Stephen Buchmann, Diana Cohn, Paul Mirocha (Illustrator)

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind*

By William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer, Elizabeth Zunon (Illustrator)

Buffalo Song

By Joseph Bruchac

Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth

By Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm

Buzzing with Questions

By Janice N. Harrington

Call Me Tree / Llamame Arbol*

By Maya Christina Gonzalez

The Coquíes Still Sing: A Story of Home, Hope, and Rebuilding *

By  Karina Nicole González and Krystal Quiles (Illustrator)

Crane Boy

By Diana Cohn, Youme Landowne (Illustrator)

Creekfinding: A True Story*

By Jacqueline Briggs Martin

The Forest Keeper: The True Story of Jadav Payeng

By Rina Singh and Ishita Jain (Illustrator)

Ganesha Goes Green

By Lakshmi Thamizhmani and Debasmita Dasgupta (Illustrator)

The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest*

By Lynne Cherry

Hiking Day

By Anne Rockwell

I Am Farmer: Growing an Environmental Movement in Cameroon

By Miranda Paul and Baptiste Paul

If We Were Gone: Imagining the World Without People

By John Coy and Natalie Capannelli (Illustrator)

Jayden's Impossible Garden

By Mélina Mangal and Ken Daley (Illustrator)

The Lion Queens of India

By Jan Reynolds

The Longest Storm

By Dan Yaccarino

Margarito's Forest / El Bosque de Don Margarito*

by Andy Carter

Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean

By Sigrid Schmalzer, Melanie Linden Chan

Mother of Sharks

By Melissa Cristina Márquez and Devin Elle Kurtz (Illustrator)

Mountain Chef

By Annette Bay Pimentel, Rich Lo

Nibi is Water *

By Joanne Robertson

No World Too Big: Young People Fighting Global Climate Change

Edited by Lindsay H. Metcalf, et. al

Old Enough to Save the Planet

By Loll Kirby and Adelina Lirius (Illustrator)

Oil Spill!

By Melvin Berger and Paul Mirocha (Illustrator)

One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia

By Miranda Paul

Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson

By Amy Ehrlich, Wendell Minor (Illustrator)

Rainbow Weaver*

By Linda Elovitz Marshall, Elisa Chavarri (Illustrator)

Saving American Beach: African American Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch

By Heidi Tyline King and Ekua Holmes (Illustrator)

The Sky Painter: Louis Fuertes, Bird Artist*

By Margarita Engle

Soda Bottle School

By Suzanne Slade

Song of the Dolphin Boy

By Elizabeth Laird

The Story of the Blue Planet

By Andri Snaer Magnason, Aslaug Jonsdottir (Illustrator)

Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted a Million Trees*

By Franck Pravot

The Water Walker*

By Joanne Robertson

We Are Water

Protectors *

By Carole Lindstrom, Michaela Goade (Illustrator)

Where's Rodney*

By Floyd Cooper

The Witch of the Woods

By Zetta Elliott and Purple Wong (Illustrator)

The Young Teacher and the Great Serpent

By Irene Vasco and Juan Palomino (Illustrator)

Young Water Protectors: A Story About Standing Rock *

By Aslan Tudor and Kelly Tudor

Zonia's Rain Forest 

By Juana Martinez-Neal

Bayou Magic

By Jewell Parker Rhodes

Cast Away

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines

By Paul Fleischman

Flying Up the Mountain

By Elizabeth-Irene Baitie

Forest World*

By Margarita Engle

Heroes of the Environment

By Harriet Rohmer, Julie McLaughlin (Illustrator)

How to Change Everything: The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other

By Naomi Klein and adapted by Rebecca Stefoff

How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming

By  Lynne Cherry

Luz Makes a Splash*

By Claudia Davila

Ninth Ward

By Jewell Parker Rhodes

The Omnivore's Dilemma: Young Readers Edition

By Michael Pollan

One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet

By Anuradha Rao

Paradise on Fire

By Jewell Parker Rhodes

Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation *

By Candy J. Cooper with Marc Aronson

Rising Seas: Flooding, Climate Change and Our New World

By Keltie Thomas

Same Sun Here

By Silas House, Neela Vaswani, Hilary Schenker (Illustrator)

Two Degrees *

By Alan Gratz

Wangari Speaks Out

By Wangari Maathai

When the World Runs Dry: Earth's Water in Crisis

By Nancy F. Castaldo

Where Have All the Birds Gone?: Nature in Crisis

By Rebecca E. Hirsch

All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis

Edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson

As Long as Grass Grows

By Dina Gilio-Whitaker

A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis *

By Vanessa Nakate

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Young Readers Edition

By William Kamkwamba

Coal Mountain Elementary

By Mark Nowak, Ian Teh (Photographer)

Don't Call Me a Hurricane

By Ellen Hagan

Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change

By George Marshall

Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology

Edited by Melissa Tuckey

How to Change Everything: The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other

By Naomi Klein and adapted by Rebecca Stefoff

Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter

By Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner

Mean Spirit

By Linda Hogan

Mi María, Surviving the Storm: Voices from Puerto Rico

Edited by Ricia Anne Chansky and Marci Denesiuk

No Planet B

Edited by Lucy Diavolo

Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

By Octavia E. Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, John Jennings (Illustrator)

Portraits of Earth Justice: Americans Who Tell the Truth

By Robert Shetterly

Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland

By Jeff Biggers

The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth

By The Red Nation

Running

By Natalia Sylvester

The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption . . . And How We Can Make It Better

By Annie Leonard

Through My Anacostia Eyes: Environmental Problems and Possibilities

By Anacostia High School Students, edited by Caroline Brewer

The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed

By Robin Broad and  John Cavanagh 

The Woman in Room Three

By Aya de León

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Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do about It

By Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert

The Cancer Factory: Industrial Chemicals, Corporate Deception, and the Hidden Deaths of American Workers

By Jim Morris

Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

By Timothy Mitchell

Cowed: The Hidden Impact of 93 Million Cows on America's Health, Economy, Politics, Culture, and Environment

By Denis Hayes, Gail Boyer Hayes

The David Suzuki Reader: A Lifetime of Ideas from a Leading Activist and Thinker

By David Suzuki

The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth

By Andreas Malm

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

By Bill McKibben

Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace

By Vandana Shiva

The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption

By Dahr Jamail

Environmental Warfare in Gaza: Colonial Violence and New Landscapes of Resistance

By Shourideh C. Molavi

Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont

By Robert Bilott

Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land

By Leah Penniman

Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore

By Nicole Fabricant

The Fourth Invasion . . . Maya Resistance

By Giovanni Batz
Open Access

Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science

By Jessica Hernandez

The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable

By Amitav Ghosh

The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems

By Van Jones

The "Greening" of Costa Rica: Women, Peasants, Indigenous Peoples, and the Remaking of Nature

By Ana Isla

A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet

By Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

By Andreas Malm

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

By Ed Yong

Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice

By Rupa Marya and Rajeev Patel

Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World

By Mike Davis

Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

By Sandra Steingraber

The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis

By Amitav Ghosh

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

By Michael Pollan

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

By Naomi Klein

Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis

By Alice Bell

Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance

By Nick Estes

The Overstory

By Richard Powers

The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions

By Neta C. Crawford

A People's History of Environmentalism in the United States

By Chad Montrie

Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement

Edited by Jeff Ordower and Lindsay Zafir

Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis

By Sandra Steingraber

Reconsidering Reparations

By Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action

By Dana R. Fisher

Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina

By Stuart B. Schwartz

Seed Sovereignty, Food Security: Women in the Vanguard of the Fight Against GMOs and Corporate Agriculture

By Vandana Shiva

Silent Spring

By Rachel Carson

Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

By Vandana Shiva

Street Art for the Planet

By Xavier Tapies

A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind

By Harriet A. Washington

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

By Naomi Klein

Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit

By Josiah Rector

The Vandana Shiva Reader

By Vandana Shiva

Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret

By Catherine Coleman Flowers

We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth

Edited by Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth

We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans

By Jordan Chariton, foreword by Erin Brockovich

Rethinking Early Childhood Education

By Ann Pelo (Editor)

Teaching Climate Change to Adolescents

By Richard Beach, Jeff Share, Allen Webb

Teach for Climate Justice: A Vision for Transforming Education

By Tom Roderick