58 books like One Plastic Bag

By Miranda Paul, Elizabeth Zunon (illustrator),

Here are 58 books that One Plastic Bag fans have personally recommended if you like One Plastic Bag. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Digging for Words: José Alberto Gutiérrez and the Library He Built

Laura Resau Author Of Stand as Tall as the Trees: How an Amazonian Community Protected the Rain Forest

From my list on children’s pictures set in South America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I feel passionate about spreading the word about all the fantastic children’s literature set in South America. As an author and a multilingual mom whose son enjoys learning about his Latin American heritage, I’ve always brought home stacks of picture books—in Spanish and English—that celebrate Latin American cultures and settings. I’ve loved traveling to the Andes mountains and the Amazon rain forest as part of my children’s book collaborations with Indigenous women in those regions. Most of all, I love transporting young readers to these inspiring places through story.

Laura's book list on children’s pictures set in South America

Laura Resau Why did Laura love this book?

I love that this book is based on the true story of a former garbage collector who became famous for building his own library… starting with a discarded copy of Anna Karenina that he’d found on his route.

The story tells of “two Josés” who lived in Bogotá, Colombia—a young one and an old one. We follow them throughout the week, until their favorite day—library day, when the older José welcomes the younger one and other children into his hand-collected library.

As someone who loves thrifted, upcycled, and re-used treasures, I felt delighted by this heart-warming and inspiring story for book-lovers of all ages.

By Angela Burke Kunkel, Paola Escobar,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Digging for Words as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A gorgeous and inspiring picture book based on the life of José Alberto Gutiérrez, a garbage collector in Bogotá, Colombia who started a library with a single discarded book found on his route.

In the city of Bogata, in the barrio of La Nueva Gloria, there live two Joses. One is a boy who dreams of Saturdays-- that's the day he gets to visit Paradise, the library. The second Jose is a garbage collector. From dusk until dawn, he scans the sidewalks as he drives, squinting in the dim light, searching household trash for hidden treasure . . . books!…


Book cover of Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table

Katherine Pryor Author Of Zora's Zucchini

From my list on to help kids like vegetables and one fruit.

Why am I passionate about this?

Katherine Pryor is the award-winning author of several picture books about food and gardens. In addition to writing, she has worked to create better food choices at institutions, corporations, and food banks. She gardens with her young twins at their home on an island in northwest Washington. 

Katherine's book list on to help kids like vegetables and one fruit

Katherine Pryor Why did Katherine love this book?

When former basketball star Will Allen notices a problem in his community—too many abandoned lots and not enough fresh food—he sees opportunity. This biography tells the story of Will Allen’s inspirational journey to create urban farms that heal both the land and the people harvesting and eating the bounty. Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table is the perfect book to talk to kids about how there is often more than one way to solve a problem and get them excited about growing their own fresh food. Plus, any picture book that includes worms is a picture book I want to read with my kids—and worms play a starring role in Will Allen’s vision.

By Jacqueline Briggs Martin, Eric-Shabazz Larkin (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

Will Allen is no ordinary farmer. A former basketball star, he's as tall as his truck, and he can hold a cabbage--or a basketball--in one hand. But what is most special about Farmer Will is that he can see what others can't see. When he looked at an abandoned city lot in Milwaukee he saw a huge table, big enough to feed the whole world.

No space, no problem. Poor soil, there's a solution. Need help, found it. Farmer Will is a genius in solving problems. In 2008, the MacArthur Foundation named him one for his innovative urban farming methods,…


Book cover of The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever

Irene Latham Author Of The Cat Man of Aleppo

From my list on The best children's picture books about ordinary people who change the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

So often when things are going wrong in the world—war, natural disasters, pollution, poverty, disease—I feel really overwhelmed, and sometimes hopeless. That's when I seek out stories like these, about ordinary people (like me!) doing extraordinary, heroic things. It inspires me simply knowing these people exist, and it empowers me to do something—just one small act can snowball and generate terrific change. I, too, can help create goodness in the world by paying attention, giving my time and other resources, and joining with others. For every heartbreaking news story, there's a beautiful one waiting to happen. Every one of us has the potential to be a hero.

Irene's book list on The best children's picture books about ordinary people who change the world

Irene Latham Why did Irene love this book?

The city of San Diego, California, is lush and leafy now in large part due to the efforts of tree-loving Kate Sessions, who in the early 1900s missed the redwood forests of her childhood when she relocated to dry, dusty San Diego. A scientist and naturalist, she procured seeds from experts far and wide to find species that might thrive in San Diego—and she started planting. She used the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park as a reason to plant thousands more trees that residents, wildlife, and visitors enjoy to this day. No one told Kate to plant all those trees; she did it because she wanted to make the world a brighter, more beautiful place.

By H. Joseph Hopkins, Jill McElmurry (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Tree Lady as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 5, 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

Unearth the true story of green-thumbed pioneer and activist Kate Sessions, who helped San Diego grow from a dry desert town into a lush, leafy city known for its gorgeous parks and gardens.

Katherine Olivia Sessions never thought she’d live in a place without trees. After all, Kate grew up among the towering pines and redwoods of Northern California. But after becoming the first woman to graduate from the University of California with a degree in science, she took a job as a teacher far south in the dry desert town of San Diego. Where there were almost no trees.…


Book cover of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Christine Ieronimo Author Of A Thirst for Home: A Story of Water across the World

From my list on stories from Africa with strong protagonists.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am passionate about writing books for children that create windows to the world, teaching empathy. Children that are empathic grow up to be kind and compassionate adults. I write because I long for a world that is more accepting and compassionate.  

Christine's book list on stories from Africa with strong protagonists

Christine Ieronimo Why did Christine love this book?

Drought has hit a Malawi village and everyone’s crops are failing. Fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba figures out how to bring electricity to the village by building a windmill out of scraps from a junkyard. I love this story because it highlights the importance of education, and along with determination, William was able to build this windmill bringing electricity which helped lift this community up and bring hope. Education is the best way to lift communities up from poverty. Elizabeth Zunon provides gorgeous illustrations that enhance the text.  

By William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer, Elizabeth Zunon (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

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…


Book cover of Lion Lights: My Invention That Made Peace with Lions

Patricia Newman Author Of A River's Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn

From my list on conservation that give readers hope.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write nonfiction books for children and teens that focus on current environmental stories. But environmental headlines are usually gloomy and filled with foreboding, so, I prefer to focus on stories that involve individuals identifying an environmental problem and working to develop a solution – hence this list of happy conservation stories. The stories in this list – and many others are the antidote to the headlines. They are the hope. They show human ingenuity at its most creative, most flexible, and most caring. Happy conservation stories empower kids, teens, and adults to care about the role they play in nature and unite them in action. 

Patricia's book list on conservation that give readers hope

Patricia Newman Why did Patricia love this book?

Conservation success isn’t always about saving animals or an ecosystem. Sometimes it’s about learning to live with nature.

Richard Turere’s story is a wonderful tale about how he protected his family’s cows – the first duty of a Maasai warrior – with an invention of his own making. And he was only twelve years old! His lion lights became so popular, they are protecting other Maasai families’ herds, too. I love this story of ingenuity, STEM, and learning to decrease human-wildlife conflicts to coexist.

By Richard Turere, Shelly Pollock, Sonia Possentini (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Lion Lights as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

Richard Turere's own story: Richard grew up in Kenya as a Maasai boy, herding his family's cattle, which represented their wealth and livelihood. Richard's challenge was to protect their cattle from the lions who prowled the night just outside the barrier of acacia branches that surrounded the farm's boma, or stockade. Though not well-educated, 12-year-old Richard loved tinkering with electronics. Using salvaged components, spending $10, he surrounded the boma with blinking lights, and the system works; it keeps lions away. His invention, Lion Lights, is now used in Africa, Asia, and South America to protect farm animals from predators.


Book cover of Make Way for Animals! A World of Wildlife Crossings

Patricia Newman Author Of A River's Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn

From my list on conservation that give readers hope.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write nonfiction books for children and teens that focus on current environmental stories. But environmental headlines are usually gloomy and filled with foreboding, so, I prefer to focus on stories that involve individuals identifying an environmental problem and working to develop a solution – hence this list of happy conservation stories. The stories in this list – and many others are the antidote to the headlines. They are the hope. They show human ingenuity at its most creative, most flexible, and most caring. Happy conservation stories empower kids, teens, and adults to care about the role they play in nature and unite them in action. 

Patricia's book list on conservation that give readers hope

Patricia Newman Why did Patricia love this book?

Human progress is often bad for wildlife. Our roads, housing developments, and stores often disrupt wildlife migration corridors. We are the problem, but Meeg Pincus writes an uplifting book about how we are also the solution.

Make Way for Animals! is a book about coexisting with wildlife. When we put our heads together there is always a way to meet our needs and the needs of the creatures with whom we share this planet.

By Meeg Pincus, Bao Luu (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Make Way for Animals! A World of Wildlife Crossings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 5, 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

Around the world, city highways and country roads have cut through natural spaces. Wild animals are blocked from the resources they need to survive, or must make dangerous crossings across busy roads to get to them. Fortunately, solving this problem has inspired some creative solutions! Take a tour of wildlife crossings across the globe, from grassy badger bridges to underpasses for elephants. Discover how these inventive pathways have saved both animal and human lives and helped preserve ecosystems.


Book cover of 111 Trees: How One Village Celebrates the Birth of Every Girl

Patricia Newman Author Of A River's Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn

From my list on conservation that give readers hope.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write nonfiction books for children and teens that focus on current environmental stories. But environmental headlines are usually gloomy and filled with foreboding, so, I prefer to focus on stories that involve individuals identifying an environmental problem and working to develop a solution – hence this list of happy conservation stories. The stories in this list – and many others are the antidote to the headlines. They are the hope. They show human ingenuity at its most creative, most flexible, and most caring. Happy conservation stories empower kids, teens, and adults to care about the role they play in nature and unite them in action. 

Patricia's book list on conservation that give readers hope

Patricia Newman Why did Patricia love this book?

You might be wondering why I included a book about valuing the birth of girls on a conservation list.

Shyam Sundar Paliwal quit his job at the marble quarry because the owners refused to plant trees to help heal the land after the mining process. When he’s elected the head of his village, he proposes that every family plant 111 trees every time a girl is born.

At that time, girls were considered a burden to their families and welcomed with silence. Slowly, Sundar changed the villagers’ minds. The trees and the girls grew up together and the village continues to prosper.

I love this story of gender equality and healing a devastated land.

By Rina Singh, Marianne Ferrer (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked 111 Trees as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 5, 6, 7, and 8.

What is this book about?

In a small village in India, a boy grows up to make a huge difference in his community by planting trees to celebrate the birth of every girl.

Based on a true story, this book celebrates environmental sustainability, community activism and ecofeminism. This is the story of Sundar Paliwal, who is from a small Indian village ruled by ancient customs. As he grows to be a man, Sundar suffers much heartbreak and decides it is time for change to come to his village. Sundar is determined to live in a place where girls are valued as much as boys and…


Book cover of Rewilding: Bringing Wildlife Back Where It Belongs

Patricia Newman Author Of A River's Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn

From my list on conservation that give readers hope.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write nonfiction books for children and teens that focus on current environmental stories. But environmental headlines are usually gloomy and filled with foreboding, so, I prefer to focus on stories that involve individuals identifying an environmental problem and working to develop a solution – hence this list of happy conservation stories. The stories in this list – and many others are the antidote to the headlines. They are the hope. They show human ingenuity at its most creative, most flexible, and most caring. Happy conservation stories empower kids, teens, and adults to care about the role they play in nature and unite them in action. 

Patricia's book list on conservation that give readers hope

Patricia Newman Why did Patricia love this book?

Rewilding is a book for older readers (ages 8+) organized in a browseable format.

The authors give a brief two-page overview of several conservation success stories. You’ll find some overlap between Rewilding’s stories and books I’ve written, like freeing the Elwha River (A River’s Gifts) and re-introducing black-footed ferrets into the wild (Zoo Scientists to the Rescue), but you’ll also find new stories about rattlesnakes, snot otters, Arabian oryx, tigers, meat-eating plants, and more. 

By David A Steen, Chiara Fedele (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rewilding as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

⭐ Selected as one of the Best Nature Books of 2022 by Kirkus Reviews ⭐
⭐ Selected as one of the Best Informational Books of 2022 for Older Readers by Chicago Public Library ⭐

"A book worth returning to multiple times. A fascinating primer on the intricacies of ecosystems." -- Kirkus, starred review

Discover inspiring stories of wildlife brought back from the brink of extinction – a perfect gift for kids who care about the environment!

Rewilding means returning animals or plants to places where they used to live. In this book, acclaimed conservation biologist and science communicator David A.…


Book cover of The Power to Name: A History of Anonymity in Colonial West Africa

Joel Cabrita Author Of Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala

From my list on literary women you’ve never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian of Southern Africa who is fascinated by questions of visibility and invisibility. I love probing beneath the surface of the past. For example, why is this person famous and renowned, but that person isn’t? To me, recognition and reputation are interesting to scrutinize as social categories in their own right, rather than as factual statements. I’ve written two books focusing on the history of religious expression in Southern Africa, and my most recent book is a biography of the forgotten South African writer and politician Regina Gelana Twala. 

Joel's book list on literary women you’ve never heard of

Joel Cabrita Why did Joel love this book?

This study of West African writers who used pseudonyms has prompted me to think about the importance of anonymity for female writers throughout the ages.

Newell looks at Ghanaian authors of the early twentieth century who used a range of pseudonyms, often for quite playful and experimental reasons.

Some of these writers were, of course, women, and they found that a pseudonym gave them increased respectability. But the pseudonym could be a double-edged sword.

A pen name was a useful cloak of anonymity allowing a woman to write.

But it also means that the true identities of these female writers are hard to discern. In other words, women writers’ frequent use of the pseudonym has rendered them both visible and invisible. 

By Stephanie Newell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Power to Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

* Finalist for the African Studies Association's 2014 Melville J. Herskovits Award for best book in African Studies Between the 1880s and the 1940s, the region known as British West Africa became a dynamic zone of literary creativity and textual experimentation. African-owned newspapers offered local writers numerous opportunities to contribute material for publication, and editors repeatedly defined the press as a vehicle to host public debates rather than simply as an organ to disseminate news or editorial ideology. Literate locals responded with great zeal, and in increasing numbers as the twentieth century progressed, they sent in letters, articles, fiction, and…


Book cover of A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution

Ana Lucia Araujo Author Of The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism

From my list on the material culture of the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a historian of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade who was trained with a PhD in History and a PhD in Art History, and who's interested in how slavery is memorialized in the public space as well as in the visual and material culture of slavery. I was born and raised in Brazil, the country where the largest number of enslaved Africans were introduced in the era of the Atlantic slave trade and that still today is the country with the largest Black population after Nigeria, the most populous African country. I believe that studying the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery helps us to remedy the legacies of anti-Black racism today.

Ana's book list on the material culture of the Atlantic slave trade and colonialism

Ana Lucia Araujo Why did Ana love this book?

Toby Green’s book is a magisterial history of West Africa and West Central Africa during the era of the Atlantic slave trade.

Exploring a large array of sources from three continents the book tells the history of African societies such as the kingdoms of Kongo and Dahomey, by showing how Africa was connected to the rest of the world earlier before Europeans reached the Atlantic coasts of the continent.

With the rise of the Atlantic slave trade Africa exported currencies such as gold, whose great value persisted over time, but kept importing cloth, cowries, iron, and copper, whose value decreased over time.

The book helps us to understand the roots of the inequalities among Africa and the Global North and shows us that these unbalanced economic and diplomatic exchanges were tied to cultural, religious, and artistic dimensions, in which material culture also played a central role.

By Toby Green,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Fistful of Shells as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

By the time the "Scramble for Africa" among European colonial powers began in the late nineteenth century, Africa had already been globally connected for centuries. Its gold had fueled the economies of Europe and the Islamic world for nearly a millennium, and the sophisticated kingdoms spanning its west coast had traded with Europeans since the fifteenth century. Until at least 1650, this was a trade of equals, using a variety of currencies-most importantly, cowrie shells imported from the Maldives and nzimbu shells imported from Brazil. But, as the slave trade grew, African kingdoms began to lose prominence in the growing…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in West Africa, pollution, and Africa?

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