Earth Day 2026 is Wednesday, April 22nd. Celebrate with TeachingBooks!

Every year, the Green Earth Book Award recognizes books focused on environmental stewardship. Explore the full list and enjoy these new video book trailers for some of the most recent winners!

• Force of Nature: A Novel of Rachel Carson
• Change Is in the Air: Carbon, Climate, Earth, and Us
• Make a Little Wave
• What the Seahorse Told Me

Inspire readers by displaying and sharing titles from these new lists:

• Environment and Conservation - Grade 4-5 Global Information Books
• WOW Dozen: Environmental Picturebooks
• 19 Top Books for Tween and Teen Climate Activists
• A Climate Change Reading List to Inspire Action, Not Dread
• There is no Planet B: Ten Books About Global Warming For Young Readers

Activities for Young Readers

• Enjoy this video book reading of Walking Together, then reflect on the importance of respecting the land. Find prompts for before, during, and after reading, as well as extension activities in this educator guide.

• Browse books in our Season Concept Book Collection and reinforce season lessons with our NEW season graphic organizers!

• Launch into a discussion as a class about where our food comes from by listening to this Meet-the-Author Recording with Jacqueline Briggs Martin about Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table. Then, have students pick a fruit or vegetable they like to eat and investigate how it gets to their table.

• Craft mini-books about the earth after watching the complete video reading of Hello, Earth!: Poems to Our Planet, and find discussion questions, tools to explore similes and onomatopoeia, and more in this discussion guide.

• Share this complete video reading for Dear Earth...From Your Friends in Room 5with your students. Have each student write their own letter to the earth using this printable writing activity and the letter writing tips in this guide from the author.

Activities for Older Readers

• Read the Introduction in the eBook preview then play the "Shopping game" in the activity guide for All Consuming: Shop Smarter for the Planet.

• Listen to this audiobook excerpt of History Smashers: Earth Day and the Environment to hear a little about how humans came to understand the impact we have on the environment around us. To go further, have students research innovations in this field.

• Have students look into the Cayuhoga River fire incident that led to the Earth Day movement, which was the inspiration for this book The Day the River Caught Fire: How the Cuyahoga River Exploded and Ignited the Earth Day Movement, or other environmental disasters.

• Choose a young climate activist from the Table of Contents (in the book preview) of Drawn to Change the World: 16 Youth Climate Activists, 16 Artists to research, then write a paragraph summary to introduce that person to the class.

• The book Flipflopi is about how 1000s of flip flops were collected and repurposed into a boat. Have students search the internet to find other creations or uses of repurposed items, and share findings with the class.

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Find additional titles and activities in this post for Earth Day 2025.