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| Photo by aeevans on Flickr Creative Commons |
Stranded inside by the rain and thunderstorms that hammered the East Coast this week, I started wondering how I used to keep myself occupied during bad-weather days as a kid. My mother was a staunch believer that television would rot my brain, so that option was out. There were always card games or Scrabble. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a tattered copy of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax that I remembered it had been books that kept me busy for hours during rainy summer afternoons. Science, nature, or animal books; pretty much anything that would help minimize the fact that I was stuck inside.
The discovery got me thinking: in a culture now enthralled with all things green, how has our new environmental mindset affected children’s literature? Are there more science-themed children’s books today than when I was growing up? How has the subject matter changed?
During my quest to answer these questions, I stumbled upon the National Green Earth Book Awards, an annual contest hosted by the Newton Marasco Foundation that honors the best in children’s literature with environmental themes. This year's winning books covered everything from tree planting efforts in Kenya to tips on how to live green.
According to the foundation’s website, the winners were chosen for their abilities to “inspire a child to grow a deeper appreciation, respect and responsibility for his or her natural environment.”
While I am a bit delayed in announcing the top books of 2009 (a bit being an understatement - the winners were chosen nearly four months ago), the opportunities sparked by this list are too good to pass up writing about. These books could serve as a guide for parents who want to bulk up their child’s bookcase with science, or perhaps they could help a teacher planning next year's curriculum. Either way, it is nice to see children’s books being recognized for improving environmental literacy, especially when so many schools are being forced to cut their science programs.