Last year we spent the summer focused on Book Flights – that’s what we call a list that suggests something for everyone at different reading ages, all about the same topic. Often, the toughest part is narrowing down to a book or two per age. So when new books come out, it makes us think of the ones we’ve already loved, and we thought that this summer we’d indulge ourselves and add some new recommendations to go with the flights we’ve posted.
We created a book flight for one of our favorite topics: important people in history who made an impact fighting and working for social justice (and some kids who made a difference too!). And here are two books we’ve discovered recently that deepened our own explorations in the topic, and we wanted to share them:
Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Protecting Our Planet by Harriet Rohmer (A Young Adult Book)
There are lots of individual strategies ecology conscious folks can incorporate into their lives to lessen help the environment: recyclying, conversing water, turning off lights. . .While these efforts are important, there is more that can be done collectively to get at the deeper causes of environmental destruction. Heroes of the Environment features 12 activists of all ages taking on mountain top removal mining, destruction of wetlands, electronic waste, and more. This is a great read for middle school and older–and a wonderful conversation starter that will invite deeper understanding and commitment of some very big issues.
Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas Edited by Shaun Slifer and Bec Young. 78 very short bios (and beautiful line drawings) of people who found a way (big or small) to stand up against things that were oppressing them. Young Adult (and older) readers will be inspired by the ideas and demonstrations of how people work to create a world where everyone can pursue a fuller life.