Nonfiction books about the deterioration of the planet are great for inspiring nightmares about the melting polar ice caps, but the fiction aisle has something to offer, too. The following YA books are as entertaining as they are thought-provoking:






Ask your kids for their thoughts about these titles, and follow up on any questions or comments they might have. After all, if today's children are going to be stuck cleaning up the mess our planet has become, it's never too early to get 'em fired up on the subject.

Labels: Earth Day '08, Kids' books

Nancy H. Taylor’s Go Green: How To Build an Earth-Friendly Community offers a concise, well-organized guide to a more sustainable lifestyle. Taylor examines everything from green building to locally-produced food, addressing her book to homeowners, students, businesspeople, and politicians. She explains the issues at stake, assesses their financial, environmental, and health impact, and then offers practical suggestions for future behavior. The book concludes with an extensive list of green products, books, websites, and organizations.

Go Green provides information for both minor and major lifestyle changes (the index alone covers everything from green skylights to environmentally-friendly burial options*). Unfortunately, its packaging is misleading. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the book is actually too cute. The cover art for Go Green is bright, funky, and graphic—it's eye-catching, but a poor match for the book’s earnestly instructive tone. This isn’t a coffee table book; it’s a succinct, methodical, insanely useful how-to guide for readers looking to reduce their environmental impact.

*Apparently, your cremated remains can be added to deteriorating reefs, thereby improving sea-life habitats! Who knew? Click here for more info.

Labels: Earth Day '08, Nonfiction

Some of us are vegetarians, some of us are flexitarians, and some of us will give up daily hamburgers with extra bacon only when they pry them out of our cold dead fingers, but most of us could probably get at least some use out of a great vegetarian cookbook. Whether you're shopping for a book that covers 100% of your dietary needs or just the occasional side dish, the following titles would make wonderful additions to any kitchen library:

1. Honest Pretzels, by Mollie Katzen

Honest Pretzels is a collection of 65 vegetarian recipes designed to be prepared by children ages eight and up. The well-organized (and delicious!) recipes feature Katzen's watercolor illustrations, as well as information on ingredients, equipment, and kitchen safety. Her "Button Cupcakes" are a perennial favorite.

2. Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables, by John Peterson and Angelic Organics

If you're interested in buying one of those farm-share boxes but you're worried about what you'd do with an entire crate of some random vegetable like, oh, rutabagas, worry no more! This book is organized seasonally by crop, so you can try anything from the "Rutabaga Waldorf Salad" to the "Savory-Sweet Rutabaga Pudding"*.

3. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, by Deborah Madison

If you like monster Joy of Cooking-style tomes, this is the cookbook for you. Recently re-released as a 10th Anniversary Edition, Madison's best-selling classic features more than 1,400 recipes, ranging from simple sandwiches to something called "Silky Mushroom Pâté with Scallion-Walnut Topping".

*Admittedly, I would never actually make something called "Savory-Sweet Rutabaga Pudding"... but I like having the option.

Labels: Cookbooks, Earth Day '08

Hoping to reduce his carbon footprint, journalist Doug Fine purchased a sprawling ranch in New Mexico, along with a couple of goats, some solar panels and a truck that runs on vegetable oil. He then vowed to grow his own food, despite the fact that he had no farming, mechanical, or goat-keeping-related skills. These experiences provided the material for Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living, the half-horrifying, half-hilarious account of Fine’s first year as a green-living gentleman farmer.

I had some stylistic quibbles with Farewell, My Subaru (Fine never met a clunky political simile he didn’t like), but I was more concerned about the environmental impact of Fine’s lifestyle. Living on a ranch twenty-odd miles from the nearest town provides plenty of opportunities for survivalist hijinks, but it doesn’t seem all that green. Sure, Fine drives a car fueled by vegetable oil, but what about his girlfriend? His mail carrier? The Fed-Ex driver who brings him goat medicine? Shouldn’t he live closer to other people, thereby minimizing sprawl and lessening the environmental impact of the various automobiles that have to trek out to his place? Is his water coming from the rapidly vanishing Ogallala Aquifer? Most of us don’t need forty-one acres of remote ranchland to experience the life he describes—I can own chickens*, raise vegetables, and eat locally-grown food right here in my semi-urban neighborhood in Olympia, WA.

But while I might question the greenness of some of the decisions in Farewell, My Subaru, nobody could fault Fine's sincerity, enthusiasm, or work ethic. Fine’s determination to minimize his carbon footprint involved making more Earth-friendly choices in every aspect of his life—even when those choices came with slimy, labor-intensive, Chinese-food-scented consequences (like his veggie-oil-burning truck). I’m not about to go out there and recreate his experiment, but I’ll raise a glass of locally-grown hard cider to his success.

*Not that I’d want to, but it’s legal. I have no idea about goats, although I see various people in town have been using them for weed control.

Labels: Earth Day '08, Nonfiction

In honor of Earth Day tomorrow, the Wordcandy Staff is devoting this week to reviewing the coolest, most Earth-friendly books--everything from memoirs to cookbooks to straight-up fiction.

We're kicking things off with a link to Ex Libris Anonymous, a company that makes gorgeous blank journals out of recycled books. Each one of their journals is unique, filled with about 75 sheets of acid-free, quality sketching paper, features a few pages salvaged from the original text (cover pages, illustrations, library cards, inscriptions, or whatever), and is held together with a black plastic spiral.




They cost a very reasonable $13, and think about the extra mojo they'd give to that novel you've always meant to write. After all, if a book called The Triplets Sign Up can get published, don't you think that you could, too?

Labels: Earth Day '08, Journals