Children's Books for Earth Day

Looking for story books to propogate the messages of Earth Day tomorrow? With the budding interest in all things "green," children's books with environmental themes are cropping up everywhere. We've rounded up a list of lists to help early childhood educators find the best books for the festivities.

If you have favorites, or know of additional resources, we'd love to hear about them and our readers would too. Please feel free to add them to the comments under this blog post.

New Books for Earth Day, OregonLive.com

What can you do with an old red shoe? A book of that title, written by Anna Alter, will tell you. It's one of several new children's books reviewed by the Associated Press and posted on OregonLive.com.

Best Green Reads, Common Sense Media

Find a list of the classics here, like Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, and then see how parents and children have rated them. You'll see that some don't always get the glowing reviews you might expect.

Did You Hug Your Planet Today?, Parents' Choice

This selection of books, toys and audio CDs goes beyond your garden-variety choices for Earth Day. One choice, for example, is a CD by Peggy Eyres, "Close to the Sun: Songs of the Earth and Beyond for Children." Another on the list is the Diary of a Worm, by Doreen Cronin. My young daughters are looking forward to digging into it.

155 Nature Books, PBS's Bookfinder

You won't find books focused on recycling or energy use here, but if you are seeking stories about bugs, bears or blackberries, you're in luck. Using the bookfinder service, you can filter this list to show books most appropriate for children of a certain age. Or cull the list to return only those that are "read aloud" books or "read to self" books.