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.