Nature Books for Kids

The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming
By Laurie David and Cambria Gordon
Scholastic, 112 pages, $15.99 (ages 9 and up)

This Is My Planet:
The Kids’ Guide to Global Warming
By Jan Thornhill
Maple Tree Press, 64 pages, $10.95 (ages 9–13)

Forget the birds and the bees. These days the most challenging talk parents have with their children might well be about global warming. Not to fear: Two new kid-friendly handbooks can help. The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming and This Is My Planet: The Kids’ Guide to Global Warming use colorful photographs, charts, and quirky graphics to teach children about the causes of global warming and what people of all ages can do to fight it.

Written by An Inconvenient Truth’s producer Laurie David and environmental activist and children’s book author Cambria Gordon, The Down-to-Earth Guide is divided into four manageable sections, each of which focuses on an important aspect of climate change, including the science behind it and the effects global warming is having on weather and animals. The manual’s serious subject matter, however, is treated with enough offbeat humor to lure kids in without much effort. For example, the section “It’s Getting Hot in Here” features the Wicked Witch of the West dissolving into a puddle while crying “I’m melting”—a visual pun to convey what the polar ice caps might say if they could speak. Young readers are apt to join the campaign by following the authors’ practical suggestions, which are coupled with convincing statistics (if every kid in the United States replaced a regular bulb with a compact fluorescent, it would save enough energy to light more than 15 million homes for a year).

Jan Thornhill’s This Is My Planet, winner of a 2007 Gold Award from the National Association of Parenting Publications, takes a slightly different approach. Though less humorous than David and Gordon’s handbook, its brightly colored text boxes and vibrant photomontages ensure a lively read. The sections are divided differently, too: While the first is devoted to basic climate science, each of the middle three explores a particular environment (the polar regions, the ocean, and land). The last section concentrates on what people are doing right and wrong. Kids might be inspired to think up their own inventions after reading examples of  “ingenious ideas” to counteract global warming, such as paint that captures solar energy and “living houses” made from trees. And they’ll feel good about doing so, knowing that “small things . . . can add up until they’re big things,” as Thornhill simply puts it.
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Lions, Tigers, and Bears: Why Are Big Predators So Rare?
By Ron Hirschi
Boyds Mills Press, 40 pages, $16.95 (ages 7–10)

Lions are kingly cats, boasting majestic manes and golden pelts. Despite their enduring iconic status, however, their future—along with that of some of the world’s other well-known predators, such as cheetahs, polar bears, and orcas—isn’t so secure. In Lions, Tigers, and Bears Ron Hirschi profiles seven top carnivores, providing background on their ecology, threats to their survival, and, when he can, hope. Among them are tigers, which live in Asia and are the world’s largest cats. Tigers number as few as 3,500 in the wild, where poaching and habitat loss are exacting a heavy toll. Hirschi explains that Japan’s and China’s efforts to ban tiger imports might bolster the populations by deterring some poachers, but he reminds us that “a larger threat may be right at our doorstep”: The United States is the second-biggest illegal importer of tiger parts. Majestic photographs taken by Thomas D. Mangelsen (whose work has appeared in Audubon and National Geographic) reveal the beauty behind the bulk and fangs. On one page, a sleeping cougar nestles between the large paws of a companion keeping a watchful eye. On another, a grizzly bear snags a fish, its wet, matted fur almost tangible—another reminder of living creatures’ ineffable vitality.—Julie Leibach
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