The Wild Robot Protects by Peter Brown (Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 2023) is the third volume in the story about The Wild Robot. My daughter and I listened to the others in anticipation of seeing the movie (as soon as it’s not $$$ to rent online!). I was excited when I first learned

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Life in a Coral Reef by Wendy Pfeffer, illustrated by Steve Jenkins (a Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out, Stage 2, book) has colorful, textured collage illustrations that wonderfully match the child-friendly text. The text is written in present tense, which helps the reader feel present in the setting, among the tentacles of the sea anemone with the clown fish

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In The Wild Robot Escapes by Peter Brown (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2018), our robotic friend from the first book has been refurbished and sent to work as a “normal” robot on a farm in a futuristic world. With all of her memories and abilities from her wild years, however, Roz is only

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In Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel (illustrated by Alexandra Colombo; IDW Publishing, 2008), the goofy illustrations and the rhyming text make for an amusing read aloud. The picture book gives the reader helpful information on how to recycle when a superhero (the titular “Michael Recycle”) comes to town to help the town learn what it

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The nonfiction picture book The Three R’s: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle by Nuria Roca (Sourcebooks, 2007), offers a refreshing perspective on the environmental subject through a first person plural and a second person narration (“we” and “you”), allowing us to delve into the concept of these three terms and comprehend the issue of excessive waste. This

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Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles by Phillippe Cousteau and Deborah Hopkinson (illustrated by Meilo So; Chronicle, 2016). Watercolor illustrations and friendly text with unique typography share the story of a child new to the area that spearheads a class project. The project, “Lights Out

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The nonfiction picture book Green: The Story of Life on Our Planet by Nicola Davies (illustrated by Emily Sutton; Candlewick, 2024) explains how plants support the world. Detailed pages with illustrations and diagrams explain the structure of a plant cell, the process of photosynthesis, a basic energy food web, and the general evolution of plants

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With a collage bunny illustration style, Recycle Every Day by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace (Two Lions, 2003) shows how bunnies Minna and Pip learn about recycling and making earth-conscious decisions. This includes donating old clothing, starting compost collection, using reusable bags, and choosing recyclable materials, as well as traditional recycling ideas. The story frame of Minna

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With a focus on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, The Coral Kingdom by Laura Knowles (illustrated by Jennie Webber; words and pictures, 2018) introduces the basic animals of the coral reef with the colorful coral reef ecosystem as the highlight of the picture book’s pages. Rhyming couplets on each page help make the text

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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann (Knopf, 2011) details the ecological and human impact of the Columbian exchange. As a dense book full of research carefully explained and expanded, 1493 was certainly not a book I “galloped” through, as one of the historian commentators exclaims on the back cover. But

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