Library column for April 22, 2022

@ Your Library

It is Earth Day! Take time to appreciate the place you live. Get outside for a walk, a bike ride or start some seeds indoors to plant outside later.

Introduce children to the idea of taking care of the earth by sharing one of these books. Biscuit’s Earth Day Celebration by Alyssa Satin Capucilli is a simple introduction to the ideas behind the origens of Earth Day. Fancy Nancy gets involved in celebrating as well with Fancy Nancy: Every Day is Earth Day by Jane O’Connor. As with most things, Fancy Nancy goes overboard in wanting her family to care for the earth. Earth Day, Birthday! by Maureen Wright is about a monkey whose birthday also happens to be Earth Day. Can he convince all his friends that it really is his birthday, too?

Vita Jimenez worked with George Ermos for illustrations and Drew Temperante to create a book and song called Make Every Day Earth Day! Caring for Our Planet. Earth Day is focused on planting trees and cleaning up litter, but those are things we could be doing every day. Abby Klein explores Earth Day with first grader Freddy in Save the Earth! His teacher, Mrs. Wushy has challenged the student to complete ten planet-friendly activities by the end of the week. Is there enough time to go green?

Documentary movies can be a great way to learn about Earth Day. “Simon Says: Let’s Stop Climate Change!” features the Hippo Works gang illuminating such topics as the greenhouse effect, global warming, the food chain and carbon footprints while highlighting the reducing, reusing and recycling, composting and carbon offsetting. Timely information presented in a student friendly manner.

Learn the history of Earth Day through a PBS American Experience film by Robert Stone called “Earth Days” which looks back to the dawn and development of the modern environmental movement. “Eye of the Future” looks at climate solutions for the planet and “Climate of Change” goes around the world finding ordinary people taking action to save the environment. And Bill Nye in “The Eyes of Nye: Global Climate Change” explores how scientists measure climate change, how carbon dioxide affects the temperature of earth’s atmosphere and the role fossil fuels play in our changing climate.

If you can’t get outside today then enjoy “Forever Wild: celebrating America’s Wilderness” a film by Robert Redford and Terry Tempest Williams. Or borrow the book Leave It As It Is by David Gessner, for a journey through Theodore Roosevelt’s American Wilderness.

A very different look at the environment and humans can be found in Engineering Eden by Jordan Fisher Smith. Harry Walker was a young man when he left his home to find himself. Nineteen days later he was killed by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park. A civil trial was held in Los Angeles beginning in 1975 over Harry’s death. The heart of the legal battle was between Harry’s family and the federal government over how much human ought to try and engineer nature.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *