We hope these selections serve to educate and encourage a dialogue on topics of environmental justice, including access to a clean and healthy environment for all people, the disproportionate impact of climate change and pollution on marginalized communities, and collective solutions to environmental issues, from grassroots to global action.
Planet Under Siege: Climate Change by Don Nardo
Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities. Global climate change has already resulted in a wide range of impacts across every region of the country and many sectors of the economy that are expected to grow in the coming decades.
Available formats: Book
It’s Getting Hot in Here: The Past, Present, and Future of Climate Change by Bridget Heos
This hard-hitting look at climate change tackles the past, present, and future of global warming, examining the effects it’s having across the world, the politics behind denial, and the ways in which we can all work to lessen the harsh effects of our warming world.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (Hoopla)
One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet by Anuradha S. Rao
This nonfiction book for middle readers profiles twenty environmental activists of color from around the world. Their individual stories show that the intersection of environment and ethnicity is an asset to helping the planet.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand), Ebook (Hoopla)
We are the Weather Makers: The History of Climate Change by Sally M. Walker
Offering a clear look at the history of climate change, how matters will unfold over the next century, and what we can do to prevent a cataclysmic future. Newly featured are twenty-five practical tips for living a greener lifestyle–at home, in school, in the community, and ultimately, on Earth.
Available formats: Book
Taking on the Plastics Crisis by Hannah Testa
In this personal, moving essay, youth activist Hannah Testa shares with readers how she led a grassroots political campaign to successfully pass state legislation limiting single-use plastics and how she influenced global businesses to adopt more sustainable practices.
Available formats: Book
How to Change Everything by Naomi Klein
Full of empowering stories of young leaders all over the world, this information-packed book offers young readers a comprehensive look at the state of the climate today and how we got here, while also providing the tools they need to join this fight to protect and reshape the planet they will inherit.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand)
Challenge Everything by Blue Sandford
A manifesto for how young people can help to save the planet by questioning everything about modern life and acting upon their conclusions. Filled with stories, essays, slogans and inspiring illustrations, this book will cover consuming, actioning, boycotting, campaigning, striking, questioning, rewilding and reconnecting with our planet.
Available formats: Book
Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman
We’re living in an Ah-Ha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never before seen. The downsides weren’t visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking — suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It’s a changed world.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (Hoopla), Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand)
Imaginary Borders by Xiuhtezcatl Martinez
In this personal, moving essay, environmental activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez uses his art and his activism to show that climate change is a human issue that can’t be ignored.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand)
Unnatural Disasters by Jeff Hirsch
Lucy Weaver has her future all figured out. Make an appearance at prom, ditch graduation, and then head out on an epic road trip with her boyfriend, Luke. But when everyone’s phones start to ring halfway through the dance, Lucy knows something terrible has happened–something big. Decades of climate change have left the world teetering on the brink–entire cities drowned, violent extremism on the rise, millions of refugees with nowhere to turn. Is this the night it finally slips over the edge?
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand)
Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick
Ash boards a Greyhound bus heading to the place where Bly was last seen: Snowflake, Arizona. Almost all the residents of Snowflake are sick. But this isn’t any ordinary sickness: the chemicals and technologies of modern life are poisoning them. They call themselves canaries, living warning signs that humans have pushed the environment too far, except no one seems to be taking their warnings seriously. As Ash lives through a cycle of illness and recovery and loss, the world beyond is succumbing to its own affliction: a breakdown of civilization only distantly perceived by Ash and the isolated residents of Snowflake, from which there may or may not be a chance for recovery.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand), Audiobook (Hoopla)
Nuclear Winter by Cab
It’s been nine years since an accident at a nuclear power plant plunged Montreal into an eternal winter; the city is now blanketed 365 days a year in radioactive snow. But life goes on for folks like Flavie Beaumont, a mail courier on snowmobile who’s carved out a pretty normal life for herself, despite mutant crushes, eclectic urban fauna, and unrelenting meteorological events of unprecedented force. It turns out surviving nuclear winter is hard.
Available formats: Book
Dry by Neal Shusterman
A lengthy California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, turning Alyssa’s quiet suburban street into a warzone, and she is forced to make impossible choices if she and her brother are to survive
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand), Audiobook (OverDrive by Media on Demand), Audiobook (cloudLibrary)
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
Set in a dark future America devastated by the forces of climate change. Teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand)
War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi
The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand)
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
In a future world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s indigenous population–and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow–and dreams–means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a 15-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones, and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing ‘factories.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand), Audiobook (OverDrive by Media on Demand)
The Story of Owen by E. K. Johnston
In an alternate world where industrialization has caused many species of carbon-eating dragons to thrive, Owen, a slayer being trained by his famous father and aunt, and Siobahn, his bard, face a dragon infestation near their small town in Canada.
Available formats: Book, Ebook (OverDrive by Media on Demand), Ebook (Hoopla)
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