These 11 Earth Day books for kids are the perfect tools for reaching your children to be kind to the environment. With themes like recycling, activism, and the beauty of nature, these stories encourage kids to love our planet and to think twice about how their actions might affect the environment.

“Can’t you just use a wipe?” I asked my seven-year-old, who was reaching for a too-high towel to clean up her mess while I was in the middle of cleaning up a different mess.

“No,” she said, with a lot of confidence for someone who was talking to a mother in the middle of so many messes. “They’re not reusable and that’s bad for the environment.”

I stared at her for a second, a tiny bit awestruck, before dropping everything and helping her get the towel. Score one for the mess maker. And score one for mom too, while we’re at it. Moments like this one are what make me realize that all of the behaviors I try to model do seep into those little brains. They see it over and over and over again until they’re doing it too.

It also helps to read stories that enforce what I’m trying to teach them. Instead of just rolling their eyes at another Life Lesson from Mom, my girls suddenly see that I’m not the only one who thinks or feels or acts a certain way.

These 11 books are perfect for Earth Day, but they’re also perfect for raising eco-conscious humans who think twice about their impact on the environment.

Call me hippie-dippie, call me Earth Momma, call me whatever, but I happen to think it’s kind of important to take care of this little planet we live on. And I think it’s incredibly important to teach our kids the same thing.

Like adults, kids totally tune out when you start lecturing them on the evils of littering or the dangers of water pollution. No one wants to be preached at. Instead, I like to fall back on the same rule of thumb I go by when it comes to teaching kids to be giving: make it fun and make it a normal part of their life.

If your kids see you throwing used bottles into the recycling bin regularly, they’ll start doing it too. If they watch you throw garbage out of your car window, they’ll do that instead. If you make a conscious effort to be environmentally friendly and to value nature and all of the little critters that live in it, your kids will be right there with you.

That said, it doesn’t hurt to model that behavior in a way that’s really fun. I put together a list of 20 kids activities to try out this Earth Day—or any day.

Let’s be real, people. If you’ve read a handful of my posts, you know this momma is cheap. I don’t mean it in a bad, two dollar hooker kind of way. I just mean if I can save a buck (or ten) you better believe I will.

Luckily this works nicely with my desire to be nice to the world we live in. I mean, the whole reduce, reuse, recycle mantra should tell you straight off the bat that thriftiness is an eco-friendly lady’s best weapon.

Since Earth Day is next Monday, I thought I’d let my inner granola-crunching, tree-hugging hippie run wild and show off a few of my favorite eco-friendly organization tips.