Happy Earth Day!

Here Comes the Garbage Barge!

By Jonah Winter, illustrated by Red Nose Studio

Schwartz & Wade Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

Showing how ridiculous the trash problem can become, Winter and Red Nose Studio satirize Long Island's 1987 attempt to unload 3,168 tons of rubbish on someone else's shore in this delightfully wry book.

As if staging sets for a Claymation film, Red Nose Studios recreates with clay, wire, cloth and found objects the notorious garbage barge fiasco, and with such humor, you'd hardly believe an event like this could ever have happened.

Over the course of six weeks, the smelly barge pulled by a salty old tugboat captain attempts to port in one community after the next, only to be greeted by scowls and armed resistance (including a Texas Ranger straddling a horse in a speedboat) along the East Coast and beyond.

At first the plan is to bring the garbage to North Carolina and pay farmers to bury it on their land, but when word gets out to officials, a police boat swerves in front of the barge and forces it away. Then the barge heads to New Orleans, only to be stopped by the Coast Guard before it can go up the Mississippi.

Finally, after being turned away by gunpoint from the coast of Mexico and Belize, even the captain can't stand the stink anymore -- he dons an oxygen mask -- and calls his boss, a Long Island mobster, to say he's quit. His boss tells him to head back to Islip and try a few places along the way, but of course no one wants the festering trash.

The barge eventually pulls into New York Harbor, where it's met by the Statue of Liberty holding her nose and a restraining order to keep it from docking. Not even Islip will take it back, but after a heated legal battle, Brooklyn agrees to incinerate the trash down in size and bury the rest where it came from.

Some say the event, fictionalized here for the sake of good storytelling, brought to light the nation's landfill problem and spurred the recycling movement.

Best Parts: As the barge nears the Florida shore, the tugboat captain is greeted by a flotilla of pasty-skinned retirees in float rings (one a rubber duck) shaking their fists.

Later off the coast of Belize, two stone-faced soldiers stand on either side of a little mustachioed general on a booster stool, shouting "Kungo," which in New Yorker slang means, "Fuhgeddaboudit."

The caricatures are hysterical and bring levity to a sad episode in history.

Flip over the sleeve of Here Comes the Garbage Barge! to see how the book was made and check out the trailer below of Red Nose Studio building the sets!

Bag in the Wind

By Ted Kooser, illustrated by Barry Root

Candlewick Press, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 48 pages

Pulitzer Prize winner Kooser delivers a quietly powerful tale of a plastic bag unearthed in a landfill that speaks to all the forgotten trash that's slow to decompose.

When a tractor turning a pile of garbage frees a plastic bag from the dump, the bag is swept over a fence, into a tree, then pecked loose by a blackbird, only to become lodged on a barbed-wire fence, where it's found by a girl looking for a bag to collect aluminum cans.

Thus begins a fascinating and eye-opening journey that will inspire readers to reuse plastic bags and eventually stop using them altogether. At story's end, readers learn that it can take 15 years to 1,000 for one bag to break down -- a sobering statistic given that the average American uses at least 350 per year.

A synopsis of the book on the inside flap describes the story as "full of happenstance and connection, neglect and conservation," and echoes the book's power: Kooser doesn't try to tell readers what they should do. He sort of nudges them to think about all of the plastic bags that have nowhere to go and what they might do to change it.

Best Parts: Kooser's words drift along, gently telling the bag's tale, and blend so beautifully with the softness of Root's images that I came away feeling as though I had read a wordless picture book, though the narrative isn't particularly spare.

At times Root's images of the runaway bag were so familiar, they were almost uncomfortable to look at. Who hasn't seen a bag tumble along a ditch, get flattened against a fence or get caught up in a branch? But how many of us go chasing after it? We may be accustomed to seeing a bag on the loose, but do we stop our cars to deal with it?

I was particularly struck by the image of a plastic bag being spit out by the tires of a passing vehicle, which seems to me like the ultimate indignity of paying no mind to trash on the road. I found myself humming the sobering melody to Kansas's Dust in the Wind -- but thinking that a bag in the wind doesn't have to be an old song we've heard before.

How the World Works: A Hands-On Guide to Our Amazing Planet

By Christian Dorion,

illustrated by Beverley Young

Templar Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 9-12, 18 pages

This cleverly designed science book puts the processes that guide Earth into a child's hands.

Pull-outs, flaps, pop-ups and even a mini flip book illustrate the basics of Earth's activities: how Earth began, how seasons change, how plates shape the planet, why weather changes, how the carbon cycle works and more.

There are also fascinating facts that meander along the edges of pages or appear in little boxes, as well as answers to questions a reader might ask, such as "What if there was no moon?" The reader need only pull a tab to see the earth spinning in a blur.

Best Parts: What better way to teach a child about his impacts on the environment than a lift-the-flap that breaks down the carbon footprint of a cheeseburger?

Lift every layer from the bun to the pickles (condiments excluded) to find out how much carbon is emitted to produce each one, and eventually the whole burger. (A grand total of 4 lbs., 2 oz. of carbon, the weight of 19 Quarter Pounders!)

Equally fascinating is a fold-out of tips we've learned from nature; for example, the reason engineers put ridges on the blades of wind turbines is because they observed that the bumpy fins on humpback whales reduce their drag in water.

Other favorites include a mini flip book that shows how the continents of Earth slid over millions of years, and pull-outs that show mountains being pushed up and magma oozing out of the earth as plates separate.

I loved this interactive book for all that it does to make the earth's processes interesting and easy to grasp.

The Magic School Bus and The Climate Challenge

By Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen

Scholastic Press, 2010

$16.99, ages 9-12. 48 pages

No one brings children into science quite like Ms. Frizzle and her latest ride around the globe is an eye-opening journey for children just learning about global warming.

In this fact-packed picture book, Ms. Frizzle decides her old earth sciences book is too dated for her students to use and loads her class into the flying school bus to see what's changed in the planet's health since the book was published.

While flying over Earth, the class observes ice melting, sea levels rising, farmlands drying out, and animals being pushed out of their homes, and compares these images to pictures in Frizzle's book from when she was 9. By trip's end, the class not only understands what's going on, but learns how to slow warming and rally others to use less energy.

Best Parts: To explain how gases in the atmosphere can make Earth warmer, Ms. Frizzle instructs the class to jump out of the bus onto slides of sunbeams.

As the sunbeams gently land on Earth, they warm the soil, causing heat to rise. The heat then pushes the kids back up into the sky until they bump into greenhouse gases and are sent earthward again to make the ground even hotter.

An important clarification accompanies the image: greenhouses gases aren't all bad -- Earth would freeze up without some -- but because so many fossil fuels are being burned, too many gases are backing up in the atmosphere.

Other highlights include the Magic School Bus morphing into a hybrid vehicle near the end of the book and a comparison of the amount of CO2 each person contributes annually to the weight of 8 hippos.

The Kids' Solar Energy Book Even Grown-Ups Can Understand

By Tilly Spetgang, illustrated by Malcolm Wells

Imagine Publishing, Inc., 2009

$14.95, ages 9-12, 88 pages

A comic book about solar energy that's printed all in green. What an ingenious way to get kids motivated about sun power and spur them to try energy experiments of their own.

This stand-out book by journalist Spetgang and renowned architect Wells, first published in 1982 before global warming made headlines then rereleased in 2009 to coincide with the upsurge in public concern, will have readers cracking up as they learn.

Rather than passively learn about the issue, readers hang out in a 6th Grade classroom as their teacher, Mrs. Robinson, talks about issues surrounding solar energy, including why it's not more popular even though it's free, it's always available and it doesn't pollute the air.

On the top of the page, readers listen to the teacher explain how solar energy works, what it takes to get solar collectors in place and how the technologies operate, while below they see line drawings of kids at their desks bantering back and forth about what she's telling them.

When Mrs. Robinson brings up the subject of the energy crunch, one kid slumped in his chair ribs, "Yeah. It's a new candy bar," to which the girl ahead of him turns around and corrects, "I thought it was when two oil tankers collide."

But this isn't just a smart-alecky group; they're also working through what she's saying and imagining what it could mean. When Mrs. Robinson explains how photovoltaic solar cells can convert light to electricity, a girl raises her hand and suggests, "Like light bulbs in reverse."

The comic relief helps to bring home the subject: in one frame a boy looks down at his smoking feet, regretting that he walked on asphalt, which like passive solar systems in houses (inside walls, barrels of water, bins of rocks) soaks up heat during the day and releases it later.

You never actually see the teacher and somehow this makes her voice carry over all of the chatter. It's fun to take it all in, then review the lessons by reading just what the teacher says (which blots out the wise cracks, but allows you to focus in on all the facts.)

Best Parts: As the book begins, Mrs. Robinson offers such a thoughtful lead-in to the topic that you can't help but become engaged in what she's saying.

"This beautiful blue-green planet of mountains and oceans and skyscrapers and great beasts of the jungle…all yours," she says. "Have you ever thought of it that way? You may be about 12 years old and not feel as if you count in any special way outside your family. But, in the wink of an eye, you will be 18, 23, 32."

If I was a teacher, I'd be scribbling down all the great lines to use in my class. My favorite: "How do you catch sunbeams to make them work for you?"

365 Penguins

By Jean-Luc Fromental, illustrated by Joelle Jolivet,

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2006

$17.95, ages 4-8, 48 pages

Bold graphics of penguins accumulating in the house of a family of four highlight this unique book about one scientist's offbeat solution to help penguins relocate from the South Pole.

In this large-format book, the family gets a package in the mail every day of the year containing a penguin and tries to figure out how to keep them all happy, healthy and organized.

First the family tries arranging them in file cabinets, then stacking them into a cube until the four become so overwhelmed that they begin to live penguin, think penguin and become penguin.

Finally after a year, Uncle Victor, the ecologist, shows up in his parka and Birkenstocks to explain the mystery and trucks all but one of the penguins (a total of 364) to the North Pole.

But now that family life is returning to normal, what's this big, new package at the front door?

Best Parts: Jolivet's images, all in black, white, orange and blue, pull you into the mounting chaos, as an unprepared family tries to keep track of a fast-growing colony of endangered birds which they know very little about.

I loved the absurdity of the father trying to stack 216 penguins into a cube shape and thinking he could file them away into a cabinet, and how excited my 7-year-old son got every time the family tried to figure out how many penguins they'd organized into a cube or drawers.

Fromental poses a multiplication problem for the reader to figure out, then hides the answer upside down at the bottom of the page. Adding to the fun, readers are invited find a blue-footed penguin tucked in among the flock.

Uncle Victor's imaginative, yet dubious scheme to save penguins shows how difficult it is to help threatened species and how desperate the situation can become.

We Planted a Tree

By Diane Muldrow, illustrated by Bob Staake

Golden Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

You don't need to plug it in. All you do is plant it and give it water. A tree, one of the most efficient air cleaners we have, and perhaps the most sublime.

In this rosy, exuberant book, author Muldrow and award-winning illustrator Staake celebrate the simple act of planting a tree and get us energized to plant one too.

The story follows two families of four, one from a typical American city, the other from rural Kenya, as they nurture a sapling and follow its growth through the years.

From the moment each family buries the root ball, their eyes and smiles grow wide and joyous, reflecting all of the possibility that the trees hold.

Each day sunshine pours onto leaves, bringing food to the trees, and soon plump buds appear at the tips of branches and pink blossoms spring open.

As summer settles in, the American children sit under a cooling canopy of leaves beside their napping dog; the branches are like broad shoulders and it feels as though the tree watches over for them.

Across the world, the Kenyan family tends a vegetable garden they've planted near their tree. They know the tree will keep soil from blowing away and help rainwater collect in the ground, and are thankful to the tree for helping them grow their own food.

At times the story cuts away from the two families to show other people and animals enjoying the splendor of trees, thus widening the celebration.

In a big city greenway, a broad tree shadows the path of joggers and horse-drawn carriage, as children run around a baseball diamond surrounded by trees that help to cleanse their air (a wonderful opportunity to explain to kids how trees remove the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use it to make wood for their growth).

Then on the next page, an elderly lady gazes at the beauty of her Grecian coast as workers fill baskets with apples, oranges -- and lemons -- from her trees.

(Those familiar with Staakes' New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book The Red Lemon and his acclaimed book The Donut Chef will be charmed by Muldrow's reference to lemons and the image of a roly-poly baker carrying a cake into the garden.)

Best Parts: The energy that builds from one illustration to the next propels our excitement about planting a tree, and by the time we see a girl swing from a stout old tree near the end of the book, our hearts are filled with awe.

Girls Gone Green

By Lynn Hirshfield, foreword by Hayden Panettiere

Puffin Books, 2010

$11.99 pbk., ages 10 and up, 208 pages

Hip and stylish, this cause-inspiring book is packed with stories of teen girls making green choices in their daily lives as well as tips for readers to be green too.

After each girl's account of going green, adult mentors and eco-minded actresses offer advice, guidance and helpful websites to get readers involved.

Amy Galper, founder of Buddha Nose, an organic line of body-care products, gives directions to make a honey mask and sugar scrub, while Juno actress Ellen Page shares how to host a planting party -- all you need are some empty egg crates, dirt, a few spoons, a packet of organic seeds and your best buddies.

Readers will be inspired by 18-year-old Alberta Nells's heart-felt speeches to stop a ski resort from being developed on mountains held sacred by Native American tribes and 16-year-old Savannah Pope and Rachel Pelletier's award-winning campaign to erect a wind turbine at their Vermont high school.

Spurred by an assignment in their environmental studies class, the Vermont teens decided to enter the 2007 Ben & Jerry's Lick Global Warming contest after their school turned down their idea for aesthetic reasons.

"The administration felt that the wind turbine would be an eyesore on campus," Pope writes. "…We decided then and there that we would win…and get enough positive publicity that it would make it difficult for our school's administration to turn us down."

The teens researched turbines, wrote grants and came up with a plan to auction off native trees to help fund it, and in the end not only won the contest, but convinced the administration that wind energy would save it thousands of dollars annually in electricity costs and reduce the school's CO2 emissions by 5,000 pounds per year.

Getting a turbine built at school might sound a bit overwhelming to some, but there are lots of other ways readers can help care for Earth -- whether it's wearing a stylish vintage dress to the prom, making a sandwich tote from recycled fabric, buying recycled school supplies or (and they'll love this) educating their parents about wise energy use.

In a section "Tips to help your parents kick gas," Colette Brooks, head of the Big Imagination Group, explains the benefit of trading in the family's gas vehicle for a good used diesel car (diesel engines can go for up to 300,000 miles before they need an overhaul.)

Best Parts: There were so many amazing stories of ordinary girls standing their ground for the environment that readers will have a tough time choosing favorites.

My favorite, however, is the story of the wind turbine. How two girls managed to get a 105-foot wind mill up and running on school grounds -- and found $40,000 to make it happen -- is amazing and brings home what a little moxie can do for someone.

This fun, easy-to-navigate book makes being green popular, fashionable and just plain smart.

31 Ways to Change the World

By We Are What We Do

Candlewick Press, 2010

$8.99 pbk, ages 8-12, 80 pages

Who thought helping Earth could be so fun?

This clever handbook gives little ways to make the world cleaner and happier, from lowering the thermostat at home (and slipping on a sweater) to using stuff until it's worn out (rather than throwing it out for something fancier).

The book comes from the London-based movement We Are What We Do, which encourages ordinary people to take on environmental and social problems through the slogan, "Small Actions x Lots of People = Big Change."

While many of the ideas will be familiar to kids (like turning off lights and being kind to others), each action is introduced in a way that is catchy and contagious.

Action #7 asks kids to look closer at their world and notice things no one else does, and conveys this idea with a two-page spread designed by the creator of Where's Waldo, British illustrator Martin Handford.

Readers are asked to find 10 images representing positive actions (along with the grinning man in the bobble hat), which gets them engaged in the world before them in a fun way.

Best Parts: Action #18 really grabbed my attention because at first I thought I was going to disagree with it, but as I read further I realized where it was headed and immediately wanted to make it my own.

The action, "Don't Sing in the Shower," is geared to getting kids out of the shower faster and offers an interesting fact: if all the kids in a class cut their shower time from seven minutes to two for one year, they could fill a swimming pool with the water they saved!

The authors end with the snappy catch phrase: "Take shorter showers. Save your singing for the rain," along with a humorous incentive that sleepy teens will surely love: "(P.S. Shorter showers also mean more time to sleep in. Which is almost as good as saving the world.)"

For more great ideas, click We Are What We Do under my "Blogs and Links I'm Following."