One Book One Community-Climate Books
Wellfleet Public Library
All selections and annotations by WPL Librarian Anna L. Nielsen
Click on a book cover or title to reserve the book in CLAMS
Picture Books
Devernay, Laetitia. The Conductor. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011. In shades of yellow and green and earth, this wordless Swiss import gives a conductor, properly dressed in evening wear and decorum, walk through a forest over roots and past branches until he makes it to the tallest tree and begins to climb. Once atop, he waits a beat, and brings out his baton: birds of leaves start to sprout and soar and fill the pages until finis! The trees are bare and the conductor takes a bow. He climbs down from the tallest of trees, past the yellow and through the green into the earth, surrounded by the birds of leaves swooping down, gently. The conductor kneels and plants some seeds. A gorgeous symphony to growth and life. Read with the latest from the Barcelona collective 
Lemniscates. Trees. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Studio, Candlewick Press, 2017, a rendering of the life cycle of seasons and trees in muted mixed media illustrations narrated by a family of crow-like birds with wide open eyes and red beaks who travel from winter to spring to summer, noting that “trees clean the air we breathe and give us their seeds with every piece of fruit.” The signs of man come through with cities and pollution and are rectified when a young boy plants some seeds, under the watchful eye of the most open-eyed bird. Finish your reading session with 
Udry, Janice May; illus. Marc Simont. A Tree is Nice. NY: Harper & Row, 1956. Winner of the 1957 Caldecott Award, this straightforward story lists all the reasons trees are nice- it has leaves you can play in, it fills up the sky, it has branches birds can make nests in, etc. The watercolor illustrations switch from black and white to full color – still a novelty in 1957 – and all show children enjoying trees. A sweet and simple pleasure not to be missed. Ages: 3+.
Case, Julie; illus. Lee White. Emma & the Whale. NY: Schwartz & Wade Books, 2017. Emma lived in an old house with crooked walls and slanted floors, but she didn’t mind. “It was close to the ocean, and that was her favorite place to be. So begins Case’s story about a girl and the ocean and the beached baby whale she tries to save. White’s watercolor and mixed media illustrations color storm and fog perfectly; Emma’s dog Nemo is the one splash of truly bright blue. When they find the whale, they run close, and Emma whispers and kneels down, “I’m not going to hurt you.” She works with the water and the whale. “Picture yourself swimming free.” The eyes of the girl and the whale are just black dots, and yet they express all the compassion of trying and wanting to live. A beautiful book for the sea. Read with Mordicai Gerstein’s The Boy and the Whale. 
NY: Roaring Brook Press, 2017. A boy and his father find a whale tangled in their fishing net. Remembering what it is like to be trapped in a net, caught and unable to swim and breathe, the boy is desperate for the whale and follows the whale out to sea in his small boat. In a flipped horizontal spread, the boy starts to get tired. “How much longer,” he wondered, “could I do this?” On the next page, he gazes into the eye of the whale, bigger than his own head, and all he sees is his own reflection. What will he do? What kind of human will he be? He cuts the net, and tugs and cuts and tugs and cuts until finally, the whale is free. The watercolor illustrations range in blues, balancing the concerns of the whale and the boy, of the despair and hope of the sea. Ages: 4+.
Jeffers, Oliver. Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth. NY: Philomel Books, 2017. This picture book is exactly what it says it is: notes for living on planet earth. Written in the first two months of his sons life, Jeffers dedicates it to him: “… I tried to make sense of it all for you. These are the things I think you need to know.” The illustrations are pure Jeffers, lush and quirky and filled with particular but not pointed detail. Of animals, he writes, “They can’t speak, though that’s no reason not to be nice to them.” He goes on, “It looks big, Earth. But there are lots of us on here, so be kind. There is enough for everyone.” And of planet earth itself, “Make sure you look after it, as it’s all we’ve got.” Jeffers gets it. Ages: 4+.
Martin, Marc. A River. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2017. A girl sits by her window and notes, “there is a river outside my window.” She wonders where it goes and what it sees. Her depth of imagining is bolstered by rich colors in watercolor, gouache, pencil, and digital collage that vary from whimsical and dreamlike to solid and real. She travels “beside the factories with their machines grinding” to the “fields that look like giant patchwork quilts” to “the murmuring of running water” to, eventually, the sea, and back again. A journey through context and connectedness, with a girl on a river. Gorgeous. Ages: 4+.
Peet, Bill. Farewell to Shady Glade (1966) and Th
e Wump World (1970). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Two classics of environmental literature for children – the former about a perfect glade destroyed by human development and the necessary flight of the resident animals and the latter about a perfect world destroyed by its colonizers ever in search of more, more, more. Peet’s animals are soft and sympathetic and the humans angular and angry. Though message-rich, the stories carry enough plot and characterization to make both books repeat choices. Ages: 3+.
Seuss, Dr. The Lorax. NY: Random House, 1971. No list about the natural world could be complete without this famous title. Who will speak for the trees? The Lorax will, and the Once-ler will learn: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Testa, Fulvio. Too Much Garbage. NY: North-South Books, 2001. This one, too, is all in the title: two boys walk through their town and notice there is too much garbage. Their reaction is straightforward – they will do something about it. Simple paintings with crisp lines illustrate the mess and the inarguable solution.
Wenzel, Brendan Hello, Hello. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2018. Cut paper, colored pencil, oil pastels, markers, digitally rendered images – Wenzel brings it all to this vibrant book of animals saying hello in all colors, patterns, shapes, and sizes. “A world to see, a world to know. Where to begin? Hello hello.” An exuberant introduction to animals, who, we learn from the authors note, are all in a degree of danger of extinction. Where to begin? We can start by saying, “hello.” Ages: 3+.
Nonfiction
Arnold, Caroline; illus. Jamie Hogan. A Warmer World: From Polar Bear to Butterflies, How Climate Change Affects Wildlife. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2012. Introductory text to the effects of global warming on animas, from adaptation to extinction: for example, as the verso (left page) tells of rising sea levels and higher water temperatures the recto (right page) tells what that mean for loggerhead turtles. Soft collage drawings done in charcoal pencil and pastel on sanded paper lend a calm and measured approach to a distinctly alarming situation. Ages: 6+.
Bang, Molly & Penny Chisolm. Rivers of Sunlight: How the Sun Moves Water Around the Earth (2017), Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas (2012), and Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life (2009). NY: The Blue Sky Press, Scholastic, Inc. Brightly illustrated books tell the stories of how the sun creates plants of the sea and the plants of the earth to bring light and life to all. Simple explanations of photosynthesis without misleading oversimplification. Additional information and resources provided. Ages: 4+.
Burns, Loree Griffin; photo. Ellen Harasimowicz. Citizen Scientists: Be a Part of Scientific Discovery from Your Own Backyard (2012) and Burns, Loree Griffin. Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion (2007). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Part of the Scientists in the Field series. Burns begins with definitions: a citizen is a resident of our world, science is a systematic study of that same world, and citizen science, then, “is the study of our world by the people who live in it.” Organized by season, the book provides guidance to butterflying, birding, frogging, and ladybugging. Further resources, quick quiz answers, bibliography, glossary, and index included. Invaluable for the young citizen curious about the world they live in. And who knows? They just might be a scientist, too. In Tracking Trash, Oceanographer Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer follows trash through the ocean currents to monitor the health of the waters and the path of human pollution. Accessible and informative, with photographs, graphs, and explanatory notes. Glossary, further resources, and practical tips of what we can all do to save the ocean included. In fact, read any and all of the Scientists in the Field series. Ages: 7+.
Chin, Jason. Grand Canyon. NY: A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Brook Press, 2017. Award winner about one of the largest canyons in the world, our very own 277 miles long Grand Canyon. Also read his Coral Reefs (2011), a love song to coral reefs and libraries both. Who could resist? Ages: 6+.
Hirsch, Rebecca E. The Monarchs are Missing: A Butterfly Mystery. Minneapolis, MN: Millbrook Press, Lerner Publishing Group. Where have all the monarchs gone? What can we do about it? Glossary and action items included. Ages: 7+.
Huber, Raymond; illus. Brian Lovelock. Flight of the Honey Bee. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2013. Combine with Sandra Markle’s The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees: A Scientific Mystery (Minneapolis, MN: Millbrook Press, 2014) for a balanced approach to how honey bees live, why they matter, and how their lives are endangered. Though the two authors differ on preferred spellings of the honey-producing creatures, their stories manage complementarity. Ages: 6+.
Kallen, Stuart A. Running Dry: The Global Water Crisis. Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books, 2015. It’s not complicated: as climate change wreaks havoc and industry abuses and wastes and disregards what little water is left, the truth will crash. We’re running out of water. What we do about it – and to whom we allow rights to water, now and forever – is up to us. Photographs and further information included. Reading is good for you. Ages: 6+.
Kurlansky, Mark; illus. Frank Stockton. World Without Fish. NY: Workman Publishing, 2011. A hybrid graphic/narrative informational text that follows a family looking for sea life as the oceans are damaged by more and more and yet more pollution, and overfishing and global warming. The author of Cod: A Biography (1997) provides a clear and creeping description of the past and present problems and Stockton provides gorgeous graphics that lend sense and sensibility. Ages: 9+.
Lubell, Winifred and Cecil. Green is for Growing. NY: Rand McNally & Co., 1964. Delicate and personable illustrations by Winnie form the backdrop for Cecil’s scientific poem explanations of the growing world around us, and how everything is connected. “The bread we eat is made of flour; the flour is made from seeds of wheat or rye, and both of these are grasses.” Winnie’s greens and grasshoppers are accompanied by Cecil’s explications. A remarkable book from a remarkable dearly departed local duo. Ages: 6+.
Messner, Kate; illus. Christopher Silas Neal. Over and Under the Pond. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 2017. A beginning primer on pond ecology, with mixed media illustrations that remind of watercolors. Sources and definitions included. Ages: 4+.
Peabody, Erin. A Weird and Wild Beauty: The Story of Yellowstone, The World’s First National Park. NY: Sky Pony Press, 2016. On March 1, 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Park Bill into Law, setting aside more than two million acres for wilderness. Things are changing. Read this for the story of how the good part began. Ages: 12+.
Thomas, Keltie; illus. Belle Wuthrich. Rising Seas: Flooding, Climate Change, and our New World. Buffalo, NY: Firefly Books Ltd., 2018. Part information book, part graphic novel presenting quick facts about how fast the sea is rising, carbon emissions, ocean acidification, and predictions about what our coastal cities are going to look like, soon. Ages: 8+.
Walden, Libby. Hidden World: Ocean. Wilton, CT: 360 Degrees, Tiger Tales, 2018. A Lift-the-Flap Nature book, filled with tidbits about the ocean and ocean animals. Beautiful. Ages: 4+.
Action & Series Books
Hand, Carol. Marine Science in the Real World. STEM in the Real World series. Minneapolis, MN: Abdo Publishing, 2017. Explains the science and the careers that use it. Inspiring. Ages: 9+.
Hansen, Grace. Marine Biome. Abdo Biomes Kids series. Minneapolis, MN: Abdo Publishing, 2017. Early introduction with short sentences and introductory facts. Ages: 4+.
Hestermann, Josn and Bethanie. Marine Science for Kids: Exploring and Protecting Our Watery World. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, Inc., 2017. Experiments to get us started learning about marine science, doable in the home. Ages: 7+.
Mulder, Michelle. Brilliant! Shining a Light on Sustainable Energy; Every Last Drop: Bringing Clean Water Home; Pedal It! How Bicycles are Changing the World; and Down to Earth: How Kids Help Feed the World by Nikki Tate. Custer, WA: Orca Book Publishers, 2014. All part of the Orca Footprints series. Focus on environmentalism and sustainable practices with an emphasis on youth engagement. Photographs, fact boxes, and further resources included. Layout design aids flow of narrative. Conversational and accessible, with solid information. Ages: 9+.
Watts, Pam. Ocean Ecosystems. Ecosystems of the World series. Minneapolis, MN: Abdo Publishing, 2017. Read all in the series, including Coral Reef Ecosystems, Wetland Ecosystems, and Desert Ecosystems. Ages: 7+.
