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Dirt | Laura Baggaley

 

In the near future, global food supply chains have failed: people live on rations, and supplement their food by growing as much as they can on government-allotted plots of land. For most people, farming is controlled by a huge agricultural company that dictates what crops they plant and how they manage them.

At the heart of the story are two teenagers, Sam and Avril: Sam lives in town, where he and his family follow the rules of the Green Cultivation Corporation, and Avril lives in a beautiful hidden valley where her extended family practices sustainable agriculture. The collision of their different ways of thinking about how to farm and how to live drives this touching romance about sustainable agriculture, community versus insularity, and sharing rather than hoarding.

 

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Don’t Call Me A Hurricane | Ellen Hagan

 

Five years after a hurricane tore through her Jersey Shore town, Eliza Marino is still piecing her life back together. Channeling her grief and fear into activism, she becomes determined to protect Clam Cove Reserve—a fragile stretch of marshland threatened by developers. Fighting to save the island is more than a cause; it’s how Eliza copes with the storm’s aftermath and the lingering dread that disaster could strike again.

When Eliza meets Milo at a party, he’s everything she resents: wealthy, a summer tourist, just passing through. She wants to hate him. But when she agrees—reluctantly—to teach him to surf, something shifts. As they spend time together, Eliza starts to let down her guard. Still, trust doesn’t come easy, and letting someone new into her carefully rebuilt life feels risky. Especially when Milo is hiding a painful secret of his own.

Told in lyrical verse, this poignant YA novel explores love, loss and resilience. Set against the backdrop of rising tides and vanishing shorelines, Eliza’s story is a powerful reflection on healing, community, and learning to connect with someone whose view of the world challenges—and maybe completes—your own.

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Fighting in a World on Fire: The Next Generation’s Guide to Protecting the Climate and Saving Our Future | Andreas Malm

 

Young people are inheriting a world of climate catastrophe. Young people are also one of the strongest forces leading movements for climate justice, and to halt the fossil fuel emissions that are making our Earth unlivable. As Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for the Future movement have made clear, solutions offered by adults are far too little, far too late: the measures in unenforceable international agreements won’t halt our reliance on fossil fuels, or take the drastic steps humans need to take in order to keep our planet liveable.

In this adaptation of Andreas Malm’s best-selling book on the need for a bolder, more confrontational climate justice movement, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, these urgent questions are brought to the most important audience of all: those who are growing up in a world on fire.

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Earthlings | Ray Star

What would the world be like if the species hierarchy imposed by humankind were turned on its head? Ray Star’s Earthlings trilogy explores the climate crisis, family dynamics,  and friendships and speciesism. Perfect for readers of Lauren James and N.K. Jemisin.

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Green Rising | Lauren James

In a near-future world rocked by the effects of the climate emergency, teenagers around the world begin developing the ability to grow plants using the power of their minds. The Greenfingers phenomenon has the potential to revolutionize how humanity interacts with the natural world, but it also brings challenges, greed, and moral dilemmas. As James’ three young protagonists come together, they challenge large, faceless corporations that prioritize profit over the planet – but they face tough decisions about the ethics of their power, raising questions about who controls nature, who profits from it, and the sacrifices needed for real change.

While James’ novel doesn’t shy away from the dark realities of environmental degradation, it emphasizes that change is within reach, particularly in the hands of young people.

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Foxlight | Katya Balen

 

Winner of the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Children’s Writing

Fen and Rey were found curled up small and tight in the fiery fur of the foxes at the very edge of the wildlands. Fen is loud and fierce and free. She feels a connection to foxes and a calling from the wild that she’s desperate to return to. Rey is quiet and shy and an expert on nature. She reads about the birds, feeds the lands and nurtures the world around her.

They are twin sisters. Different and the same. Separate and connected. They will always have each other, even if they don’t have a mother and don’t know their beginning. But they do want answers. Answers to who their mother is and where she might be. What their story is and how it began. So when a fox appears late one night at the house, Fen and Rey see it as a sign – it’s here to lead them to their truth, find their real family and fill the missing piece they have felt since they were born.

Foxlight is a heart-breaking and heart-warming story about sisterhood, found family and accepting love in the most unusual and unknown places.

Lyrical, with a quality of fairy tale – a finely crafted celebration of nature, sisterhood, stories and love. – The Times

Quietly wild, richly thoughtful. – The Guardian

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The Illustrated World Encyclopaedia of Insects: A Natural History and Identification Guide to Beetles, Flies, Bees Wasps, Springtails, Mayflies and Many More | Martin Walters

 

This beautifully illustrated book provides an overview of the world of insects. It begins by exploring the evolution of the insect family, looking at their basic anatomy, their fascinating life cycles, and their social organisation within colonies and nests.

It explains how insects jump, leap and fly, how they defend themselves and their colonies from attack, and the methods by which they eat, including sucking, biting, chewing, grinding, and filter feeding.

Organised according to geographical region, this book looks at every order of insect, from the tiniest opaque wingless creature to the largest and most spectacular beetle. The most common species from each are included, and many are illustrated with beautifully detailed watercolours.

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The Lost Whale | Hannah Gold

 

In this enchanting children’s novel, Rio has been sent to live in California with a grandmother he barely knows while his mum is in hospital back home. Alone and adrift, the only thing that makes him smile is joining his new friend Marina on her dad’s whale watching trips. That is until an incredible encounter with White Beak, a gentle giant of the sea changes everything. But when White Beak goes missing, Rio must set out on a desperate quest to find his whale and somehow save his mum.

Perfect for readers of 8+, and beautifully illustrated throughout by Levi Pinfold.

The Girl Who Broke The Sea | A. Connors

 

Part thriller, part sci-fi, this exhilarating Young Adult novel is set in the depths of the ocean, at an experimental deep-sea mining rig. It follows Lily, a teen who’s been kicked out of school for her destructive behaviour. But when she ends up at the mining rig with her mother, her story leads to a shocking discovery.