Show us Your Green Thumb! April 22nd is Earth Day!

Maisy’s Big Book of Kindness by Lucy Cousins

This exuberant celebration of kindness follows Maisy and her friends as they spread joy around them by sharing toys, making cards and gifts, nurturing animals, caring for the environment and looking out for one another.

The Tree and the River by Aaron Becker

“In an alternate past–or possible future–a mighty tree stands on the banks of a winding river, bearing silent witness to the flow of time and change. A family farms the fertile valley. Soon, a village sprouts, and not long after, a town. Residents learn to harness the water, the wind, and the animals in order to survive and thrive. The growing population becomes ever more industrious and clever, bending nature itself to their will and their ambition: redirecting rivers, harvesting lumber, reshaping the land, even extending daylight itself …”– Provided by publisher

History Smashers, Earth Day and the Environment by Kate Messner

“Myths! Lies! Recycling scams? Discover the real story behind the first Earth Day celebration and some of the biggest US climate catastrophes–and their solutions!”– Provided by publisher.

Wings in the Wild by Margarita Engle

When a hurricane exposes Soleida’s family’s secret sculpture garden, the Cuban government arrests her artist parents, forcing her to escape alone to Central America where she meets Dariel, a Cuban American boy, and together they work to protect the environment and bring attention to the imprisoned artists in Cuba.

The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves by J.B. MacKinnon

“Consuming less is our best strategy for saving the planet-but can we do it? In this thoughtful and surprisingly optimistic book, journalist J.B. MacKinnon investigates how we might achieve a world without shopping”– Provided by publisher.

Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challeged a Nation by Tiya Miles

“An award-winning historian shows how girls who found self-understanding in the natural world became women who changed America. Harriet Tubman, forced to labor outdoors on a Maryland plantation, learned from the land a terrain for escape. Louisa May Alcott ran wild, eluding gendered
expectations in New England. The Indigenous women’s basketball team from Fort Shaw, Montana, recaptured a sense of pride in physical prowess as they trounced the white teams of the 1904 World’s Fair. Celebrating women like these who acted on their confidence outdoors, Wild Girls brings new context to misunderstood icons like Sakagawea and Pocahontas, and to under-appreciated figures like Native American activist writer Zitkála-Šá, also known as Gertrude Bonin, farmworkers’ champion Dolores Huerta, and labor and Civil Rights organizer Grace Lee Boggs. This beautiful, meditative work of history puts girls of all races–and the landscapes they loved–at center stage and reveals the impact of the outdoors on women’s independence, resourcefulness, and vision. For these trailblazing women of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, navigating the woods, following the stars, playing sports, and taking to the streets in peaceful protest were not only joyful pursuits, but also techniques to resist assimilation, racism, and sexism. Lyrically written and full of archival discoveries, this book evokes landscapes as richly as the girls who roamed in them–and argues for equal access to outdoor spaces for girls of every race and class today”–Dust jacket flap.

Good Nature: Why Seeing, Smelling, Hearing, and Touching Plants is Good for Our Health by Kathy Willis

“Reveals how, if we bring nature more into our lives, it can help improve our health and well-being in so many unexpected ways. Oxford professor Kathy Willis has spent her career researching fossilised plants and plant matter – but when she stumbled across a study that showed that patients recovering from surgery improved faster just by being able to see trees from their hospital bed, it radically changed the way she viewed the natural world. Professor Willis has since embarked on a process of discovery to find the research that has shown, time and time again, that there is a causal link between plants in our lives, both indoors and outside, and better physical and mental health. Consulting plant scientists and biologists, medical practitioners and psychiatrists, city
planners and government health authorities, she encourages us to transform how we design and inhabit our environments. There are simple changes we can all make in our homes: for example, the scent of rosemary will make you more awake; green-and-yellow-leaved houseplants are the best at reducing stress; and touching and stroking untreated wooden surfaces can lower our blood pressure. But we can also think on a much grander scale: prescribing more nature in streets, offices and our homes will not only save money but improve the health of us all. Focusing on how we interact with nature through the senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch, Good Nature explains how we can organize our homes, our time outdoors and the world around us to reap the health benefits of nature that science is only now just discovering”–Publisher’s description.