Elementary | Middle School | High School / Adult | Educators
Here are titles on the environment for children, young adults, and educators. Learn about our criteria for selecting titles. Feedback on these lists and suggestions for additional titles are welcome.
Most of the books on these lists are linked for more information or purchase to Bookshop.org (an indie bookstore platform) or Powells.com (an independent, unionized bookstore). A small percentage from book sales through these links goes to Teaching for Change.
Titles with reviews on this site are noted with an asterisk (*).
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.)
If We Were Gone: Imagining the World Without People
By John Coy and Natalie Capannelli (Illustrator)
Old Enough to Save the Planet
By Loll Kirby and Adelina Lirius (Illustrator)
Oil Spill!
By Melvin Berger and Paul Mirocha (Illustrator)
Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson
By Amy Ehrlich, Wendell Minor (Illustrator)
Rainbow Weaver*
By Linda Elovitz Marshall, Elisa Chavarri (Illustrator)
Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet
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
Ninth Ward
By Jewell Parker Rhodes
The Omnivore's Dilemma: Young Readers Edition
By Michael Pollan
Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation *
By Candy J. Cooper with Marc Aronson
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
Coal Mountain Elementary
By Mark Nowak, Ian Teh (Photographer)
Cowed: The Hidden Impact of 93 Million Cows on America's Health, Economy, Politics, Culture, and Environment
By Denis Hayes, Gail Boyer Hayes
Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace
By Vandana Shiva
Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology
By Melissa Tuckey (Editor), Camille Dungy (Foreword by)
How to Change Everything: The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other
By Naomi Klein and adapted by Rebecca Stefoff
Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment
By Sandra Steingraber
Mean Spirit
By Linda Hogan
Mi María, Surviving the Storm: Voices from Puerto Rico
Edited by Ricia Anne Chansky and Marci Denesiuk
A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind
By Harriet A. Washington
The Vandana Shiva Reader
By Vandana Shiva
Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret
By Catherine Coleman Flowers
The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed
By Robin Broad and John Cavanagh
A People's Curriculum for the Earth Teaching about the Environmental Crisis
By Bill Bigelow (Editor), Tim Swinehart (Editor)
Rethinking Early Childhood Education
By Ann Pelo (Editor)
