Sustainability for the Birth to 10 age group

What learning resources do you recommend in this subject area for children from ages 0 through 10?

My favorite picture book on sustainability is Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed. Carle walks readers through an entire season in the life of a plant. The illustrations are full of love, magic, and suspense. The Real Story of Stone Soup presents a traditional Chinese folktale. Here is the website of the author, who was raised in Wuhan province, People's Republic of China: www.yingc.com

Jan Brett seems to be the one children's book author whose writings all seem relevant to the genre of sustainability, from The First Dog to The Mitten 20th Anniversary Edition to her drop-dead gorgeous illustration of Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jan Brett.

For children ages 6-11, there's The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind, about a 14-year-old in an African village who invented and built a wind-operated energy collector for his community. Here's the author's blog:

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba/2009/04/my-book-the-boy-who...

The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker, illustrated by Garth Williams, is a children's introduction to historical American cooking from the Midwestern frontier era. Little House in the Big Woods is a chapter book on sustainability, along with Little House on the Prairie, and perhaps the rest of that series.

At the Farmers Market with Kids: Recipes and Projects for Little Hands, as listed on Amazon, uses not a subject heading but an interesting tag: "seasonal."

Uh, this may be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but what about Jack and the Beanstalk? My favorite version of this classic fairy tale is by the English author and poet E. Nesbit, who also wrote the hands-down favorite The Railway Children.

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

We Are Extremely Very Good Recyclers by Lauren Child, part of the Charlie and Lola series of picture books. They also have a website with a recycling/planet game for kids.

Recycle Every Day by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

Thank you! That reminds me, there should be some applicable titles of the video kind as well, DVD, maybe even some games!

So far, the only examples I can come up with are from the Oregon Trail experience or tales related to the California Missions, but what is out there beyond, shall we say, white privilege? Ideally, there should be some inclusive material in a live action (or animated) video format - movie or game on some aspect of sustainability.

The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton is one. The other one I like is Farewell to Shady Glade. Both are tragic (and very 20th century) because it says the only solution is to keep on running from modernization.

A sad but true message in many ways.

PBS did a couple of specials on over-consumption back in the 90s, which I find spells the issue out pretty well, and would be understandable to many children in your stated age group. They're called Affluenza and Escape from Affluenza. They present the information in an upbeat, brisk and comical manner. My library still has VHS copies. I think Bullfrog Films will sell you a dvd from their website.

I think The Giving Tree could open a nice dialog on the matter.

Look, just live a simple, responsible life.
Show your kids reality.
Stop trying to give them books to teach them real life.
Live it yourself!

> 7
Hi Liz,
True ... but this is LibraryThing, not LifestyleThing.

And I am sure people here, like myself, walk the walk and talk the talk, as well as read the read.

Life is too short to be reading junk. So recommending books that may or may not influence children is important, only if having read them will give them an opportunity to think about the issues, may be not immediately but someday they will think 'oh, I remember that story I read when I was young. It is like this situation'.

As a parent, I have been honored to help form my childrens' perceptions of the world. It's not only about particular lessons, but an entire ethos of understanding. They may not remember the story, but they will absorb the values you present, in story and action.

According to noted sustainability blogger (and nowadays, writer as well) Sharon Astyk, author of Independence Days among other titles of hers, the main issue that lizstansbridge is raising in our group is the issue that Astyk confirms is a key issue in sustainability groups: that issue is credibility, as in following through on what we say is important. Having once again returned from my NorCal sustainable living home to deal with family issues in SoCal, I'm thus reminded that actually living sustainably is the most important step. The good news for all of us is that this direction is attainable for all, and starting now is possible for all. Astyk's writings include many examples of what she calls "adapting in place" by people who are unable to move from sub-optimal city locations, apartments, etc., who can still prepare for future lifestyle uncertainties.

The first book of Sharon's I've read so far is Making home: adapting our homes and our lives to settle in place.

Here's a great, great title for ages 8 and up, according to Workman Publishing Company, publisher of:

Recycled robots: 10 robot projects. Author is Robert A. Malone. Neither the title nor the author is touchstoning, so here is the listing for that title from Workman's website:

http://www.workman.com/products/9780761154662/

The good news? This book is such a natural that your kid will grab it out of your hands and disappear with it! The other good news? Look down this same publisher page, and see others of their titles that are apparently equally popular on related topics ... recycled sweaters??! Egad.

ISBN info for "Recycled Robots:"

ISBN: 9780761154662 (0761154663)

You may have to buy the following from The Institute For Solar Living, which sells it in their brick-and-mortar bookstore in Hopland, Ca. (and perhaps online as well) Here's the ISL website, just in case:

http://www.solarliving.org/

Ok, the title is not touchstoning, no surprise, since it was apparently self-published by The North Coast Co-op in 2013:

Lunch box envy: an adventure in healthy eating for kids and families. Published 2013. Includes recipes. Author(s) unlisted, presumably a "corporate author" situation. The publisher website is:
http://www.northcoastco-op.com

The Tiny Seed sounds very promising. What's the age range?

Jim53 and everyone, the suggested audience is 4-6, but it depends on the child also. I found that The Tiny Seed's simplicity of language, as well as the jewel-like beauty and seeming simplicity of its illustrations made it easy for my son to understand when he was 2. Another plus for very young children is that it is now being published in a board book format in a very small size.

Here are more recent children's cookbooks, selected out of an LT List (children's cookbooks):

Fanny at Chez Panisse: a child's restaurant adventures with 36 recipes. The Waldorf kindergarten snack book; The Family kitchen garden: how to plant, grow, and cook together; Cooking the Mexican way: revised and expanded to include new low-fat and vegetarian recipes; Simply in season children's cookbook; Knead it, punch it, bake it!: the ultimate breadmaking book for parents and kids; Cooking the Chinese way: revised and expanded to include new low-fat and vegetarian recipes; Kids around the world cook! the best foods and recipes from many lands; Crickets's cookery; The Toddler cookbook; Easy cooking: simple recipes for beginning cooks; Mother's little helper cookbook.

A 2017 update for this genre includes two older picture books from the one and only Margaret Atwood, a picture book on Thoreau, and from 2016, a marvelous book of poems for children.

Up in the tree is written, hand-lettered and hand-printed by Margaret Atwood. "For the birds" is her other picture book on the natural world. Henry David Thoreau a year in the woods, illus. by Giovanni Manna. When green becomes tomatoes: poems for all seasons. For anything not touchstoning, please see my LT collection, where I added all these titles.

How to Talk to Kids About Climate Change?
Here are (9) books that’ll help
Lela Nargi | Aug 27 2018

Ages 3–7
The Digger and the Flower ($18, Balzer + Bray) by Joseph Kuefler.

Ages 4–8
The Brilliant Deep ($18, Chronicle Books) by Kate Messner, illustrated by Matthew Forsythe. (coral reef)

Ages 5–6
Great Polar Bear ($18, Seagrass) by Carolyn Lesser.

Ages 6–10
Icebergs & Glaciers ($18, Harper) by Seymour Simon.

Ages 7+
Look at the Weather ($20, Owlkids) by Britta Teckentrup.

Ages 8–12
The End of the Wild ($17, Little Brown) by Nicole Helget. (fracking)

Ages 9–13
Rising Seas ($20, Firefly) by Keltie Thomas.

Ages 10+
When the Sky Breaks ($23, Smithsonian) by Simon Winchester. (hurricanes and tornadoes)

Ages 12+
Legacy ($18 pre-order, Putnam) by Jessica Blank. (old growth forests)

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/cool-schools-2018/how-talk-kids-about-climate-...

No touchstone for Legacy, look for it on author page - Jessica Blank
Ordered a copy for myself.

Ages 4-8
Think of an Eel: Read and Wonder Paperback – April 1, 2001
by Karen Wallace (Author), Mike Bostock (Illustrator)
_________________________________________________

Beautiful illustrations, well-written, and accurate.

On the IUCN's red list, the American Eel is in danger of extinction. Such a remarkable animal makes a big impression on child lucky enough to see one. Fishing in Lake Ontario as a child, I was hard-pressed NOT to catch eels, but over-fishing, contaminants, dams etc. have just about extirpated them there. (Cool fact: Lake Ontario eels are all female.) Eels are catadromous (as opposed to anadromous), spawning in the Sargasso Sea, floating as larvae in currents and swimming as juveniles to freshwater streams in Europe and North America to mature. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-eel-is-in-danger-of-extincti...