Read for Earth Day

It’s Earth Day. I have to admit, I hadn’t really given it much more than a passing thought this year. This may be a surprise for some of my readers, as I tend to be considered the Green one among my friends. But really, I don’t celebrate the Earth any more today than any other day.

Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel

All that said, I did choose an Earth Day themed book to read to my son before his nap today. The book, Michael Recycle was a gift from his grandparents in Italy, and I hadn’t yet taken the time to read it to him. O and I both looked through it when it first arrived, but Buggie wasn’t really in a “read to me” stage at that time. Now, he loves books, and we read to him every day. So today, this was my choice. I’m sure that at 16 months, he doesn’t yet understand words like “recycle” and “sustainability,” but I want him to grow up with them. Books are an excellent way to achieve that.

Eco Babies Wear Green by Michelle Sinclair Colman

As such, I was thinking of other “green”-themed books we have in the house. For Buggie’s first birthday, he received a copy of Eco Babies Wear Green. It’s a board book, and is an amusing take on ecological concepts, as they pertain to children. For the most part, its humor is there for the parent or other reader. And if you’ve ever read to a young child, you know that board books can get monotonous, so humor is a nice touch.

Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth by Lee Welles

Now, if your young reader is old enough to start on chapter books, I heartily recommend the Gaia Girls series. At present, there are three books, with a fourth due sometime this year, according to their website. So far, I’ve only read the first, but I was very impressed. It’s written for the YA audience, but even as an adult, I found it enjoyable. I’ve no doubt that the rest of the series is just as good.

Take a few minutes today – with your child, or on your own – to pick up a book, and to learn a little bit about the Earth.