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1. A Love the Earth Booklist: Preserve,Restore, Reuse {Giveaway}

Welcome to the next installment of my Book-Jumper Summer Reading Series! This is my way of inspiring parents who are looking for creative ways to keep their kids reading this summer. All of our protagonists are girls or women and most of our showcased authors are women as well. I will be offering up a combination of themed weeks, great novels, booklist giveaways, and blog post recaps so be sure and stop by to discover more wonderful ways have A Book-jumper Summer while Exploring Our World and Beyond!

Bookjumper Summer Reading

This week we’ve been celebrating the planet we live on, Earth. On Earth Day I created a very fun booklist which honors amazing people preserving and restoring areas on our planet as well as others reusing items to accomplish great feats.

earth day book list

Every library should have these inspiring stories from Wangari Mathai who planted an entire forest saving her country, to William Kamkwamba who created a windmill to end a drought in his town, to Isatou Ceesay who started with just one plastic bag. On this list you’ll also find entertaining chapter books with a environmentalist theme to them as well. Each person can contribute something.

One of the more amazing things about this booklist is that we’re giving it away. Have a look below and get inspired.

A Love the Earth Booklist

Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees by Franck Prevot, Illustrated by Aurelia Fronty

earth day booklist

Wangari Maathai received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her efforts to lead women in a nonviolent struggle to bring peace and democracy to Africa through its reforestation. Her organization planted over thirty million trees in thirty years. This beautiful picture book tells the story of an amazing woman and an inspiring idea.
A book for young readers. It involves new kids, bullies, alligators, eco-warriors, pancakes, and pint-sized owls. A hilarious Floridian adventure!

One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia

One plastic bag

Plastic bags are cheap and easy to use. But what happens when a bag breaks or is no longer needed? In Njau, Gambia, people simply dropped the bags and went on their way. One plastic bag became two. Then ten. Then a hundred.

The bags accumulated in ugly heaps alongside roads. Water pooled in them, bringing mosquitoes and disease. Some bags were burned, leaving behind a terrible smell. Some were buried, but they strangled gardens. They killed livestock that tried to eat them. Something had to change.

Isatou Ceesay was that change. She found a way to recycle the bags and transform her community. This inspirational true story shows how one person’s actions really can make a difference in our world.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba

Boy who harnessed the wind

When a terrible drought struck William Kamkwamba’s tiny village in Malawi, his family lost all of the season’s crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family’s life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William’s windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land.

Retold for a younger audience, this exciting memoir shows how, even in a desperate situation, one boy’s brilliant idea can light up the world. Complete with photographs, illustrations, and an epilogue that will bring readers up to date on William’s story, this is the perfect edition to read and share with the whole family.

SeedFolks by Paul Fleishman

earth day booklist

A vacant lot looks like no place for a garden. Until one day, a young girl clears a small space and digs into the hard-packed soil to plant her precious bean seeds. Suddenly, the soil holds promise.

Heroes of the Environment by Harriet Rohmer

This inspiring book presents the true stories of 12 people from across North America who have done great things for the environment. Heroes include a teenage girl who figured out how to remove an industrial pollutant from the Ohio River, a Mexican superstar wrestler who works to protect turtles and whales, and a teenage boy from Rhode Island who helped his community and his state develop effective e-waste recycling programs. Plenty of photographs and illustrations bring each compelling story vividly to life.

earth day booklist

John Muir: My Life with Nature by Joseph Comell

earth day booklist

Written mostly in the words of Muir, it brims with his spirit and adventures. The text was selected and retold by naturalist Joseph Cornell, author of Sharing Nature with Children, who is well known for his inspiring nature games. The result is a book with an aliveness, a presence of goodness, adventure, enthusiasm, and sensitive love of each animal and plant that will give young adults an experience of a true champion of nature. It is a book that expands your sense of hope, adventure, and awareness. Adults will be just as fond of this book as young readers. Cornell includes numerous explore more activities that help the reader to understand and appreciate the many wonderful qualities of Muir.

Wild Wings by Gill Lewis

Earth day booklist

This “vividly imagined and well-written novel” (Booklist, starred review) tells a gripping story about a boy from Scotland and a girl from West Africa who join together to save a migrating Osprey—and end up saving each other.

When Callum spots crazy Iona McNair on his family’s sprawling property, she’s catching a fish with her bare hands. She won’t share the fish, but does share something else: a secret. She’s discovered a rare endangered bird, an Osprey, and it’s clear to both her and Callum that if anyone finds out about the bird, it, and its species, is likely doomed. Poachers, egg thieves, and wild weather are just some of the threats, so Iona and Callum vow to keep track of the bird and check her migratory progress using the code a preservationist tagged on her ankle, no matter what.
But when one of them can no longer keep the promise, it’s up to the other to do it for them both. No matter what. Set against the dramatic landscapes of Scotland and West Africa, this is a story of unlikely friendships, the wonders of the wild—and the everyday leaps of faith that set our souls to flight.

Earth Booklist Giveaway

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

ONE winner will receive one copy of each of the books above. Giveaway begins July 1,2015

  • Prizing & samples  courtesy of Authors of the above books
  • Giveaway open to US addresses only
  • ONE lucky winner will win one copy of each of the above books.
  • Residents of USA only please.
  • Must be 18 years or older to enter
  • One entry per household.
  • Staff and family members of Audrey Press are not eligible.
  • Grand Prize winner has 48 hours to claim prize
  • Winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter on July 13th, 2015

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post A Love the Earth Booklist: Preserve,Restore, Reuse {Giveaway} appeared first on Jump Into A Book.

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2. Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 3

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
By William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer
Illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon
Dial, 2012
$16.99, ages 6 and up, 32 pages

It stood like a clumsy giraffe and was cobbled from metal scraps, but to a teen named William it was more magical than anything he'd dreamed.

In this inspiring adaptation, Africa's William Kamkwambi recounts with New York author Bryan Mealer how he rigged a windmill for his poor village using only a picture as his guide.

The story, which can be read for free online at wegivebooks.org, is based on Kamkwamba's New York Times best-selling memoir by the same name, also co-authored by Mealer.

Kamkwamba and Mealer condense the story beautifully, while West Africa-born artist Elizabeth Zunon conveys Kamkwamba's irrepressible spirit with fluid cut-outs and luminous, earthy oil paintings.

At age 14, William Kamkwamba pondered the possibilities of what could be. When night came to his drought-ravaged village of Malawi, he closed his eyes to see where his mind would take him.

In his dreams he built things and took them apart, like trucks with bottle-cap wheels and pieces of radio, and he wondered things. "If I can hear the music, then where is the band?"

He also dreamt of his grandpa's tales of witch planes and ghost dancers, hovering and twirling "as if a hundred men were inside their bodies."

At dawn, as he threw his hoe in the fields, his mind also wandered. He imagined magical beings drifting in the maize rows and wondered what made the engine of a passing truck go.

But as drought took hold and turned the maize to dust, William and his family, along with other villagers, found themselves in desperate need.
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3.

Reviewed by J. J. Murphy

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Title: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
Author: William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
Publisher: HarperCollins
For Ages: 12 years and up
ISBN: 978-0-06-173032-0
Date of Publication: 2009

My idea of a good book is when I get to the end, I turn the book over and start reading it again. William Kamkwamba is the actual boy who harnessed the wind.

It’s hard to imagine, as 2009 draws to a close, that there are people who live daily without electricity and running water. It’s hard to imagine communities without free public education, but that’s reality in many countries.

So what made a boy ask, “How does electricity work?”

Even in William’s native Malawi, people have battery-powered radios and bicycle dynamos. His best friend, the son of a local chief, lives in a house with limited government-supplied electricity. The Kamkwamba family depends on their mastery of the “wilderness skills” I am learning and practicing.

While William has no access to computers, he does have access to a library and a mind capable of grasping advanced physics.

This is what happens to books that find their way to places like Recycled Reads and Project Schoolhouse.

As I embrace the rebalancing of my nature life and my writing life, this book gives me a true sense of perspective. When tempted to despair at the human capacity for greed and corrption, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind gives me renewed hope for the human spirit and faith that creativity will prevail over brutality.

I’m on my third read-through. I still cannot grasp the physics that seem to clear to William. But I am grateful to the writers and entrepreneurs and other leaders that helped bring this remarkable true story to life.

********************

J J MurphyJ. J. Murphy is a freelance writer who helps a variety of companies, small businesses and individuals express their awareness and dedication to developing sustainable technology and to preserve our natural resources. Learn more about her and her writing services at www.writerbynature.com.

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