Group items tagged

Bedford, Deborah Jackson. Garbage Disposal: Action for the Environment. North Mankato, MN: Smart Apple Media, 2006. Age Range: 9 and up Publisher's Description: Deborah Jackson Bedford discusses successful landfill and incineration alternatives, the 3Rs (reduce, recycle and reuse), composting and responsible living.

The Earth's population is soaring, but its resources are finite. Can we provide food, water, energy - and televisions, cars and holidays - for everyone, and leave future generations more than a planet-sized rubbish tip? BBC News Online explores sustainable development in a six-part special.

Rohmer, Harriet. Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People who are Helping to Protect Our Planet. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2009. Age Range: 9 and up Publisher's Description: Rather than featuring the usual roundup of environmental heroes, this title spotlights 12 contemporary conservationists who are working to fight pollution in cities, oceans, and wetlands, from Alaska to Mexico City. Many of the featured activists are young people. At age 11, Alex Lin started a campaign in Rhode Island for the safe disposal of electronic waste ("Today's technology should not become tomorrow's toxic trash"). Erica Fernandez, a teenage Mexican immigrant in California, led a successful fight to prevent a pipeline that would transport highly explosive gas through her neighborhood. Julia Bonds, a coal-miner's daughter in Appalachia, is working to replace coal with wind power. The book's format is lackluster, but the black-and-white photos do show the individuals at work in their communities. The powerful mix of personal stories with crucial environmental and social issues will be a call to action for young readers, who will want to move on to the final section: "How You Can Get Involved."

Taback, Simms. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat. New York, NY: Viking Juvenile, 1999. Age Range: 5 and up Publisher's Description: When Joseph's favorite overcoat gets old and worn, he makes a jacket out of it. When the jacket is more patches than jacket, Joseph turns it into a vest. When the vest's number is up, Joseph makes a scarf. This thrifty industry continues until there's nothing left of the original garment. But clever Joseph manages to make something out of nothing! (And that's the foreshadowed moral of the story.) In today's throwaway world, Joseph's old-fashioned frugality is a welcome change. Based on a Yiddish song from Simms Taback's youth (lyrics and music reproduced on the last page), the book is filled with rhythms and arresting colors that will delight every reader. As more and more holes appear in Joseph's coat, die-cut holes appear on the pages, hinting at each next manifestation. The illustrations are striking, created with gouache, watercolor, collage, pencil, and ink. Every inch of space is crammed with fanciful, funny details,

Rockliff, Mara. Get Real: What Kind of World are YOU Buying? Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Kids, 2010. Age Range: 10 and up Publisher's Description: Rockliff outlines how mass consumerism is harming our planet, and specifically how teens can use their purchasing power to enact change. She cites examples of products that teens use frequently (high-tech electronics, clothing, junk food, etc.) and explains how their production often harms the people who make them, the environment, and, potentially, the end consumer. She explains that a chocolate bar was most likely made with cacao beans harvested by exploited workers, and that a cell phone contains enough heavy metals to seriously harm our groundwater. She covers (un)fair labor practices, environmental pillaging, factory farming, excessive marketing, local vs. corporate stores, and the pervasive throwaway mentality that drives the whole cycle. The author's in-your-face approach makes her points while still engaging readers-she is never didactic or overbearing. She encourages teens to make a difference in their world by making small changes to things they do already-buying fair-trade chocolate or saving up for an organic cotton T-shirt. The pop-art illustrations are clever and illustrative of many points. The impressive bibliography provides lists of documentaries, websites, books, articles, and other sources to help teens find out how their favorite products came to be (and came to be so cheap). Learning more about how these products are made just might make some teens think twice about their buying habits.