Tag Archive for: nature

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Tree Full of Wonder | Anna Smithers

 

This delightful children’s book introduces young readers to the magnificence and importance of trees. Through lyrical prose and gorgeous illustrations, Tree Full of Wonder explores the many ways that trees enrich our lives—providing shade, food, homes for wildlife, and even helping to combat climate change. Blending wonder with practical knowledge, children will appreciate trees not just as background elements of nature, but as vital, living beings that sustain ecosystems. It’s a gentle yet powerful reminder of the interconnectedness of all life and a call to protect these natural treasures.

Perfect for bedtime stories or independent exploration. Suitable for ages 3-8.

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Arboreality | Rebecca Campbell

 

Campbell’s brilliant cli-fi novella weaves an intergenerational story of human resilience against the backdrop of ongoing ecological collapse. Rooted in the dire consequences of unchecked colonial capitalism, the story juxtaposes grief and loss alongside survival and regeneration. A professor rescues books from the flooded and collapsing McPherson Library. A man plants fireweed on the hillside of his depopulated Vancouver Island suburb. An aspiring luthier poaches the last ancient Sitka spruce to make a violin for a child prodigy. Campbell’s astonishing vision pulls the echoing effects of small acts and intimate moments through this interconnected story of how a west coast community survives the ravages of climate change.

A gentle and thought-provoking narrative that lingers long after the last page.

Elephant in My Kitchen! by Smriti Halls. Illustrated by Ella Okstad

 

When wild animals move into Rafi’s house, he needs to figure out a BIG PLAN to get them back to their own homes. Elephant in My Kitchen! is a laugh-out-loud picture book that turns a chaotic household into a wild adventure. The story follows a family’s attempts to manage an ever-growing elephant in their kitchen and the chaos unfolds from tea parties to laundry mishaps, making it a perfect read-aloud for kids and parents alike.

A positive, empowering and fun-filled picture book about taking care of our amazing planet with imagination, humour, and the joy of embracing the unexpected—even when it’s an elephant in the kitchen!

Suitable for ages 3 to 5 years.

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The Savage Landscape | Cal Flyn

 

A modern  journey into the heart of what we call wilderness, The Savage Landscape weaves together adventure, philosophy and personal reflection, asking urgent questions about humanity’s relationship with the natural world and the meaning of wild places in an era when no corner of the planet remains untouched. Flyn’s lyrical prose carries readers from the ocean floor to volcanic peaks, blending awe-inspiring landscapes with deep historical and cultural insights.

What makes this book exceptional is its refusal to romanticise wilderness. Instead, Flyn confronts the complexities of how humans have shaped—and been shaped by—the wild, challenging readers to reconsider their own relationship with the untamed. The result is a work that is as intellectually stimulating as it is beautifully written, leaving you with a sharper understanding of the wild’s enduring, if complicated, hold on the human spirit.

Here We Are | Oliver Jeffers

 

A beautifully illustrated guide to our modern day planet for younger children.

“Well, hello. And welcome to this Planet. We call it Earth.

Our world can be a bewildering place, especially if you’ve only just got here. Your head will be filled with questions, so let’s explore what makes our planet and how we live on it. From land and sky, to people and time, these notes can be your guide and start you on your journey. And you’ll figure lots of things out for yourself. Just remember to leave notes for everyone else… Some things about our planet are pretty complicated, but things can be simple, too: you’ve just got to be kind.”

Suitable for 2 to 6 years old

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No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies | Julian Aguon

 

‘A powerful, beautiful book. Its fierce love – of the land, the ocean, the elders and the ancestors – warms the heart and moves the spirit.’ – Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

Part memoir, part manifesto, Chamorro climate activist Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies is a coming-of-age story and a call for justice-for everyone, but in particular, for Indigenous peoples.

Aguon beautifully weaves together stories from his childhood in the villages of Guam with searing political commentary about matters ranging from nuclear weapons to global warming. Bearing witness and reckoning with the challenges of truth-telling in an era of rampant obfuscation, he culls from his own life experiences to illuminate a collective path out of the darkness.

A powerful and bold voice writing at the intersection of Indigenous rights and environmental justice, Aguon is entrenched in the struggles of the people of the Pacific who are fighting to liberate themselves from colonial rule, defend their sacred sites and obtain justice for generations of harm.

In No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, Aguon shares his wisdom and reflections on love, grief, joy and triumph, and extends an offer to join him in a hard-earned hope for a better world.

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The Dark Frontier: Unlocking the Secrets of the Deep Sea | Jeffrey Marlow

 

The deep sea is one of our planet’s last frontiers. Here, where the light cannot reach, lies a strange, wonderful and breathtaking world, teeming with scientific marvels and lessons for the future of life on this planet. In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and explorer Jeffrey Marlow plunges us into the ocean’s depths and invites us to witness close-up encounters with its hidden brilliance. Translucent shrimp dance through sulphurous vents, crabs stretch twelve feet from claw to claw and the eerie chalk-white towers of the ‘Lost City’ loom.

Immersive and illuminating, Marlow’s journeys reveal alarming warning signs as well: we are irrevocably changing the deep sea before we have even had a chance to understand it. This book offers insights into the ways in which the twinned forces of exploration and exploitation have shaped our relationship with the ocean. It shows how life can thrive in even the most extreme conditions, and reveals critical links between the deep sea and life on land.

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The Garden Awakening: Designs to nurture our land and ourselves | Mary Reynolds

 

In this beautifully written and illustrated book, award-winning garden designer Mary Reynolds encourages us to restore the health and energy of our land. Drawing inspiration from permaculture traditions as well as the ancient multi-tiered approach of forest gardening, this book covers both the artistic and practical aspects of creating a magical garden that is an expanding, living, interconnected ecosystem.

The Garden Awakening is both art and inspiration for any garden lover seeking to create a positive and natural space while incorporating sustainable living such as growing your own food. It combines practical step-by-step instructions with spiritual, ancient Celtic stories to help you awaken any garden space, nurturing it to benefit both land and people. This approach allows ecosystems to be in balance while providing a space and nourishment for humans beings.

Coming up for Air | George Orwell

Striking the balance between comical and pessimistic, this Orwellian novel follows George Bowling as he foresees the horrors of World War Two and attempts to escape the threat of violence and old age by retreating to his childhood town.

First published in 1939, Coming Up for Air is a novel by George Orwell examining how commercialism and capitalism are destroying the English countryside and opening the way for new threats. When an insurance salesman, George Bowling, wins money on a horserace, he decides to escape his disillusioned London life and attempt to relive his innocent childhood. He returns to his small town of birth in rural England and hides from the reality of the impending war.

“Coming Up for Air helps us to see that disillusionment with the present, through nostalgia, can lead only to further delusion. Orwell’s work, written in the midst of the rise of fascism and economic depression, can help us to see the importance of rationalism in opposition to idealism. As we face more problems at home and abroad, this message remains significant as ever, and the consequences of our failure to live up to it just as colossal.” – Patrick Maxwell, The London Magazine.

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A Sky Full of Kites: A Rewilding Story | Tom Bowser

 

An inspirational account of one family’s journey from farming to rewilding and how they brought Red Kites back into Scotland’s skies.

Once Britain’s most common bird of prey, Red Kites had been wiped out by the early 1900s in Scotland and England following centuries of persecution. When some reintroduced kites began roosting on their 1,400-acre farm at Argaty in Perthshire, Tom Bowser’s parents, Lynn and Niall, decided to turn their estate into a safe haven. They began feeding the birds and invited the world to come and see them, learn about them and fall in love with them.

A Sky Full of Kites is the story of the Argaty Red Kite project, and the re-establishing of these magnificent raptors to Scotland, but it is also much more than that. Ill at ease with the traditional rural values of livestock farming, Lynn and Niall’s son Tom, who returned to work on the farm after a career in journalism, reveals his passion for nature and his desire to dedicate his family’s land to conservation.