Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Happy Earth Day! Actually..... everyday should be Earth Day.

I spent a lot of time at the library today trying to find books about keeping our planet clean. Most of the books I found were geared for 2nd grade and up. There is a great one called Recycle! by Gail Gibbons which discusses paper, plastic, glass, cans and polystyrene. It teaches kids how to recycle, tells why it's necessary and its benefits. But I had to leave that one on the shelf because it's beyond my 5 year old's attention/comprehension.

Then, with the help of a really nice librarian (at the new Pretlow branch), we came across an amazing "caring for the earth" series of Pebble/Capstone books. Titles in this set: Let's Recycle!, Let's Reduce Garbage!, Let's Reuse!, Let's Save Energy! and Let's Save Water! PERFECT for early readers with big photo images and few simple sentences with big font.

Earth Smart, How To take Care of the Environment by Leslie Garrett is another early reader published by DK. It was a little too lengthy for my 5 year old but still quite simple with great big photos and text. It's more for the 6-8 crew.

The Lorax by Dr. Seuss was my biggest score for the day! If you're not familiar with this one, it teaches a lesson not to mess with mother nature. When the truffula trees are all cut down to make products for human consumption and in the end only a tiny seed exists....

Our fate now rests in the hands of a caring child who becomes our last chance for a clean, green future.