Here are 30 books that Rainbow Weaver/Tejedora del Arcoiris fans have personally recommended if you like
Rainbow Weaver/Tejedora del Arcoiris.
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The shore was my first great love, the falling in love-kind. I grew up in Houston, a short distance from the Texas coast. My parents took us there often. Back then, in the 70s, I found a wealth of treasures: sand dollars, urchins, seahorses, starfish, and mollusks. Since then, the treasures have diminished considerably. It’s rare to find any of these animals that were once common. In my research on oceans, reefs, and Earth’s many animals and habitats, I’ve learned that many are endangered and that habitat loss due to human activity is the primary culprit. My contribution to help restore the Earth’s health is through children’s books.
I love this book because its title reflects how I feel about water: protective. Young Nokomis, a girl of the indigenous Ojibwe people, learns that humans are born of water, and it is sacred. She says that the “river’s rhythm runs through my veins.” I feel the same way.
Finding ways to protect it is a large undertaking, but there are simple ways too. Praying, especially in song, is one. Nokomis reminds us that all of us, humans, animals, and elements, are interconnected. I agree with this sentiment: We Are One. Her prayer is mine. We must stand strong and work together, pray, and sing together as one of the everyday activities to acknowledge the sacredness of water.
Winner of the 2021 Caldecott Medal #1 New York Times Bestseller
Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption―a bold and lyrical picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and vibrantly illustrated by Michaela Goade.
Water is the first medicine. It affects and connects us all . . .
When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth And poison her people’s water, one young water protector Takes a stand to defend Earth’s most sacred resource.
As a lover of nature and travel, I’ve long been interested in how communities worldwide protect their environments. While living and traveling in Latin America, I learned how Indigenous knowledge and practices make our planet healthier for everyone. Several of my ten children’s books deal with these issues, including my novel Tree of Dreams, inspired by my time in the Amazon rain forest with a Huaorani community whose home was threatened by oil operations. This led me to collaborate with the Kichwa leader, Patricia Gualinga, on the picture book,Stand as Tall as the Trees: How an Amazonian Community Protected the Rain Forest, available in English and Spanish in July, 2023.
Wow! Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai is an incredible inspiration for everyone. I loved learning about her ground-breaking work through this vibrant picture book biography. She left her village in Kenya and earned a Masters degree in the United States, which gave her a different perspective on the environmental devastation occurring in her home. Trees had been cut to make way for monocropping cash crops, resulting in dusty land and a lack of food. To solve the problem, she organized women to plant trees, uniting communities that had previously fought, and starting the Green Belt Movement—which eventually spread around Africa and the world. Despite political persecution, she protected human and environmental rights through peaceful protest, always promoting the value of working together.
This is the inspiring story of Wangari Maathai, women's rights activist and one of the first environmental warriors. Overcoming great obstacles, Wangari began the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in the 1960s, which focused on planting trees, environmental conservation and women's rights. She inspired thousands across Africa to plant 30 million trees in 30 years, saving many from hunger and poverty. Her remarkable story of courage and determination shows how just one person can change the world.
The story shows children how desertification works: how land is eroded and degraded when trees aren't there to hold the soil in place…
As a lover of nature and travel, I’ve long been interested in how communities worldwide protect their environments. While living and traveling in Latin America, I learned how Indigenous knowledge and practices make our planet healthier for everyone. Several of my ten children’s books deal with these issues, including my novel Tree of Dreams, inspired by my time in the Amazon rain forest with a Huaorani community whose home was threatened by oil operations. This led me to collaborate with the Kichwa leader, Patricia Gualinga, on the picture book,Stand as Tall as the Trees: How an Amazonian Community Protected the Rain Forest, available in English and Spanish in July, 2023.
Sea turtles fascinate me. I’ve had the joy of learning about them on trips to Central America and Mexico, and I was thrilled to discover this fabulous middle-grade novel on the topic. Twelve-year-old Olivia is on summer vacation in Florida, struggling to deal with her parents’ recent separation. When she realizes that the local sea turtle population is in danger, she feels called to act. She must find courage to defend the sea turtles while facing her own personal pain in the process. This is a wonderfully written story, accessible and relatable. It offers incredible information about sea turtles while providing a model for how kids can make a difference in protecting endangered species.
An inspiring and timely story of friendship, courage, and the magic that can happen when we stand up for what's right.
Normally, Olivia spends all year looking forward to her family's summer vacation in Florida. But not this year. Not when her parents have recently separated, and her father has to stay behind in Colorado. Olivia doesn't know what she'll do all summer without him. They've always been a pair, and she's never felt the same bond with her mother or younger sister. So Olivia plans to spend the summer laying low, and trying to ignore the hurt gnawing at…
As a lover of nature and travel, I’ve long been interested in how communities worldwide protect their environments. While living and traveling in Latin America, I learned how Indigenous knowledge and practices make our planet healthier for everyone. Several of my ten children’s books deal with these issues, including my novel Tree of Dreams, inspired by my time in the Amazon rain forest with a Huaorani community whose home was threatened by oil operations. This led me to collaborate with the Kichwa leader, Patricia Gualinga, on the picture book,Stand as Tall as the Trees: How an Amazonian Community Protected the Rain Forest, available in English and Spanish in July, 2023.
What I love most about this middle-grade novel is the way fantasy can shed light on environmental problems and possible solutions in the real world. This suspenseful and magical story follows the journey of twelve-year-old Ash as she sets out to save her village. On her adventures, she encounters giant mistcats, forest spirits, and a supernatural puppy, coming to understand the complexities of what’s causing the deforestation and devastation of her home. This rare gem of a book engages readers in a fun, fantastical, and inspiring tale, while taking a deep dive into how we can work together to protect our environment.
“A dangerous town carved out of unforgiving forest, a young girl who can name spirits and tame monsters, a race against time to save the natural world: The Namer of Spirits is what readers want and the world needs.” –Eliot Schrefer, New York Times bestselling author
In the frontier village of Last Hope, people dismiss twelve-year-old Ash Narro as a flighty child who claims to hear the true names of things. But when enraged forest spirits attack, Ash shows that the names she hears have power.
After taming a destructive forest spirit, Ash teams up with Fen, a wild forest…
I’ve been fascinated by Maya religion since college—ever since I took my first class on Maya hieroglyphics at Tulane University. At first, I was drawn to the visuals accompanying the glyphs: women running ropes through their tongues, men holding hands with gods, and animals (spirits) wielding sacrificial knives. Then I began chasing the meanings of those visuals until I found myself specializing in ancient Maya mortuary behavior and receiving a PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University. I am happy to say that I am still on the chase, having written or edited five books (with two more on the way). I hope you enjoy this list!
When I think about ancient Maya religion, the first thing that comes to mind is pageantry; I imagine kings performing in front of a crowd, or perhaps nobles bloodletting for a small audience inside a palace. Magic and witchcraft are an afterthought. They are front and center in this book—as they were in ancient Mesoamerica. This collection of essays forced me to abandon the habitual boundaries between magic, religion, and witchcraft in the Maya area (and I am better for it). If you are looking for a book where rulers summon monsters and witchcraft is a way of life, this is the place to start.
As a former Division 1 basketball player at Marquette University and current ecommerce executive, I’m always looking for new sources of inspiration. Please enjoy my list and send me any comments on what you find inspiring!
This is a different type of inspiration, one rooted in exploration and going to places that no man has gone before. The author himself goes on a journey to find a lost city in the Honduran rainforest, and while sexy on the outside, discovers the stark challenges that exist in the world’s densest jungle. If you’re an adventure seeker, you’ll really enjoy this book.
The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Honduran rainforest in this riveting narrative about the discovery of a lost civilization -- culminating in a stunning medical mystery.
Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who…
I am a Chicago-based artist, author, veteran, and teacher. I studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago before enlisting in the United States Air Force in 1968 during the bloody Tet Offensive during the Vietnam era. Upon my discharge I got my BFA in 1994. I got convicted for a crime I did not commit, and I became a homeless-existential artist on Chicago’s mean streets for six months. I got hired by an Acoustic company, and I married and worked for twenty-seven years while raising a family. I now work as an art teacher. All my nonfiction books chronicle different episodes in my life.
Years ago, I was a janitor. When I would take a shower, it was like I could never get the stench off my body. I like Susan Strasser’s book because it reminds me of the waste I use to clean up daily. She examines the most unprecedented commonplace act of throwing things out and how it has transformed American society.
Her classic book about trash world culture is fascinating to me because, in the last hundred years, the way of life has been replaced by mass consumption, disposable goods, and waste on an unimaginable scale. Her book could easily be used as a metaphor for the ‘homeless,’ whom some view as “disposable’ goods. Her book illustrates that what counts as trash depends on who counts it, and what we throw away defines us as much as we keep it.
Strasser argues that in Western society, popular understanding of cleanliness, gender,…
An unprecedented look at that most commonplace act of everyday life-throwing things out-and how it has transformed American society.
Susan Strasser's pathbreaking histories of housework and the rise of the mass market have become classics in the literature of consumer culture. Here she turns to an essential but neglected part of that culture-the trash it produces-and finds in it an unexpected wealth of meaning.
Before the twentieth century, streets and bodies stank, but trash was nearly nonexistent. With goods and money scarce, almost everything was reused. Strasser paints a vivid picture of an America where scavenger pigs roamed the streets,…
I want to live in a future where all life can thrive. Toward that end, I spend my days teaching and writing about how we can solve the problems we face in our communities and world and build such a future. No surprise then that I read extensively about solutions to problems, looking for those that are visionary while being practical and which truly strive to do the most good and least harm for everyone. As a systems thinker, I’m always looking for books that recognize how interconnected our political, economic, production, food, legal, energy, and other systems are and that offer ideas that will have the fewest unintended negative consequences.
When I first read this book more than twenty years ago, I wanted to jump for joy. Here was a book of solutions to our problems based on a simple but brilliant question: How can we create products, buildings, and systems that are 100% regenerative and healthy? In other words, not simply less bad but truly good?
The book then proceeded to answer that simple question with examples that had already begun to take root, and a vision in which we can all take part. It was among the most hopeful books I had ever read, and even though it’s more than two decades old, it remains a classic of solutionary thinking and action.
How can we avoid environmental disaster? Nowadays, in the home, most of us do our bit: we recycle. But what about industry, where the real damage is done? The strategy is the same: 'reduce, resize, reuse' - we try to minimize the damage. But there is a limitation to this well-intentioned approach: it maintains the one-way, 'cradle to grave' manufacturing model of the Industrial Revolution, the very model that creates immense amounts of waste and pollution in the first place.What we need is a major rethink, a new approach which directly combats the problem rather than slowly perpetuating it. An…
I am a teacher, author, & parent, determined to help keep our earth healthy for future generations. A few Earth Days ago, my students asked why we only set aside one day a year to practice eco-healthy habits. Good question! As a teacher, I know how crucial it is for authors to get our facts right. Before writing Dear Earth… I read stacks of books and articles on our environment. I am indebted to science expert & author Melissa Stewart, and my friend Patricia Newman (Plastic Ahoy!; Planet Ocean / Lerner), as well. I sincerely hope Dear Earth… and the books on my list inspire Earth Heroes everywhere--every day.
What a Waste is the perfect nonfiction pairing for Dear Earth, packed with in-depth information, not only on everyday habits that hurt our environment, but super important (and simple) actions Earth Heroes, young and old, can take to change these habits. I can just see the kids in Room 5 using this book as a reference each month for their eco-friendly projects.
In this informative book on recycling for children, you will find everything you need to know about our environment. The good, the bad, and the incredibly innovative. From pollution and litter to renewable energy and plastic recycling.
This educational book will teach young budding ecologists about how our actions affect planet Earth and the big impact we can make by the little things we do.
Did you know that every single plastic toothbrush ever made still exists? Or that there is a floating mass of rubbish larger than the USA drifting around the Pacific Ocean?
Having studied diet and behavior for forty years, I realized that I had ignored obesity. However, after eventually considering the topic, I found that the actions of both politicians and the food industry had been spectacularly unhelpful. Why are so many people allowed to suffer? If politicians and the food industry are ineffective, there is a third group that could engineer change: the general public. It is scandalous that so many have been condemned to an early death following decades of ill-health. Something needs to change.
I learned how much food is wasted while so many people are hungry: in the USA, half of all food is wasted, and in the United Kingdom, 20 million tonnes of food are thrown out each year. Yet I also gained an implicit and unintended message: we need more than a good idea. I became certain that, although we need to understand the situation and have a plan, in industrialized countries, most dietary problems reflect a human reluctance to change behavior.
It became clear to me that we need to factor in human behavior and offer more than good advice. Good ideas are often stymied by the reluctance of humans to change what they eat. For me, the unintended takeaway message was that the failure of attempts to encourage healthy eating, to a large extent, reflects paying too much attention to food. Rather, you need to concentrate on people as…
With shortages, volatile prices and nearly one billion people hungry, the world has a food problem-or thinks it does. Farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets and consumers in North America and Europe discard up to half of their food-enough to feed all the world's hungry at least three times over. Forests are destroyed and nearly one tenth of the West's greenhouse gas emissions are released growing food that will never be eaten. While affluent nations throw away food through neglect, in the developing world crops rot because farmers lack the means to process, store and transport them to market.
