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 with cover images. 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
Alicia and the Hurricane / Alicia y el huracán: A Story of Puerto Rico / Un cuento de Puerto Rico *
By Leslea Newman, Elizabeth Erazo Baez (Illustrator), and Georgina Lazaro (Translator)
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind*
By William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer, Elizabeth Zunon (Illustrator)
The Coquíes Still Sing: A Story of Home, Hope, and Rebuilding
By Karina Nicole González and Krystal Quiles (Illustrator)
If We Were Gone: Imagining the World Without People
By John Coy and Natalie Capannelli (Illustrator)
The Longest Storm
By Dan Yaccarino
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)
Saving American Beach: The Biography of African American Environmentalist MaVynee Betsch
By Heidi Tyline King and Ekua Holmes (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
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis
Edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis *
By Vanessa Nakate
Coal Mountain Elementary
By Mark Nowak, Ian Teh (Photographer)
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
Mean Spirit
By Linda Hogan
Mi María, Surviving the Storm: Voices from Puerto Rico
Edited by Ricia Anne Chansky and Marci Denesiuk
Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
By Octavia E. Butler, Damian Duffy (Adapted by), John Jennings (Illustrator)
Running
By Natalia Sylvester
The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed
By Robin Broad and John Cavanagh
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
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
Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment
By Sandra Steingraber
Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina
By Stuart B. Schwartz
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
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)
