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 Powells, an independent, union labor bookstore. 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.)

Aani & the Tree Huggers

By Jeannine Atkins

 

Ajijaak - Crane*

By Cecilia Rose LaPointe

The Bee Tree

By Stephen Buchmann, Diana Cohn, Paul Mirocha (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

Crane Boy

By Diana Cohn, Youme Landowne (Illustrator)

 

Creekfinding: A True Story*

By Jacqueline Briggs Martin

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

The Lion Queens of India

By Jan Reynolds

Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean

By Sigrid Schmalzer, Melanie Linden Chan

Mountain Chef

By Annette Bay Pimentel, Rich Lo

Nibi is Water *

By Joanne Robertson

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)

The Sky Painter: Louis Fuertes, Bird Artist*

By Margarita Engle

 

Soda Bottle School

By Suzanne Slade

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

Bayou Magic

By Jewell Parker Rhodes

 

Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines

By Paul Fleischman

 

Forest World*

By Margarita Engle

Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet

By Harriet Rohmer, Julie McLaughlin (Illustrator)

 

Josie and the Trouble with Trash (Josie Goes Green #3)

By Beth Handman, Kenny Bruno, Antonia Bruno

Luz Makes a Splash*

By Claudia Davila

 

Margarito's Forest*

by Andy Carter, Allison Haves (illustrator), Omar Mejia (Translator)

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

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)

 

As Long as Grass Grows

By Dina Gilio-Whitaker

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

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

By David Suzuki

 

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

By George Marshall

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

By Bill McKibben

 

Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace

By Vandana Shiva

Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology

By Melissa Tuckey (Editor), Camille Dungy (Foreword by)

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

By Van Jones

 

Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter

By Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner

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

By Sandra Steingraber

Mean Spirit

By Linda Hogan

No Planet B

Edited by Lucy Diavolo

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

The Overstory

By Richard Powers

A People's History of Environmentalism in the United States

By Chad Montrie

 

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

By Sandra Steingraber

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

By Jeff Biggers

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

 

The Story of Stuff: The Impact of Overconsumption on the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health--And How We Can Make It Better

By Annie Leonard

 

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

 

The Vandana Shiva Reader

By Vandana Shiva

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

By Catherine Coleman Flowers

World Hunger: Twelve Myths

By Frances Moore Lappe, Peter Rosset, Luis Esparza

 

A People's Curriculum for the Earth Teaching about the Environmental Crisis

By Bill Bigelow (Editor), Tim Swinehart (Editor)

 

Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability

By C. Bowers

Rethinking Early Childhood Education

By Ann Pelo (Editor)

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