Summer is the perfect time of year to slow down and reconnect with nature, big ideas, and maybe a good book or two. These books explore the beauty and complexities of our planet, providing stories that educate and inspire!

The Burning Earth: A History by Sunil Amrith

Over the past five centuries, industries, empires, and human ambition have drastically changed Earth’s ecosystems. In The Burning Earth: A History, Sunil Amrith looks at the environmental costs of global expansion and progress from colonial mining to modern dependence on fossil fuels. By connecting history with modern issues, this book shows how past choices led to our present climate crisis, and how a more fair and ecological future is still possible. The Burning Earth also draws attention to the resilience of communities that have resisted environmental destruction. This story urges readers to think about how human actions have changed the planet and to imagine new, more sustainable paths for the future.

Turtles of the Midnight Moon by María José Fitzgerald

Turtles of the Midnight Moon is a middle-grade eco-mystery that follows two 12-year-old girls from opposite worlds. Barana is Honduran and spends her days guarding endangered leatherback turtles on the beach, while Abby is a shy girl from New Jersey visiting her father’s homeland. When poachers threaten the turtles’ nesting sites, the girls form an unusual alliance. With bright descriptions of Honduran village life, a bit of magical realism, and a real exploration of personal values, this novel is an exciting adventure that celebrates compassion and community.

Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change Around the World by Zahra Biabani

Drawing from her “Weekly Earth Wins” newsletter and personal experiences, Zahra Biabani speaks on a range of global initiatives in Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change Around the World. These fascinating stories include policy shifts, legal victories, and innovative community-led projects in the Global South. By synthesizing data, practical guidance, and interviews with activists, the author shows that positivity is an impactful framework for action and encourages readers to engage beyond individual efforts by highlighting collective, larger change. If you are feeling overwhelmed or eco-anxious, this book offers a source of reassurance, informing readers of progress being made and empowering them further with stories of action and systemic change.

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

What if rivers are more than flowing water? What if they are living beings with rights deserving of legal recognition? These are the types of questions explored in Is a River Alive? As he travels through places like Ecuador’s cloud forests, India’s polluted creeks, and Quebec’s wild rivers, Robert Macfarlane connects his storytelling with environmental insight to look at the deeper meaning of rivers. Inspired by indigenous movements and activism, Macfarlane argues for a shift from seeing rivers as resources to recognizing them as entities with agency and spirit. This book tells stories of encounters with companions and local communities and recognizes the grief in environmental experiences to urge readers to rethink our relationship with the natural environment.

Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet by Barbara Dee

The middle-grades novel Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet follows twelve-year-old Haven, who has so much eco-anxiety that she struggles with sleep, school, and socializing. While on a science class excursion, Haven discovers alarming levels of pollution in the local river and begins to suspect the new glass factory, where her dad works. Deciding to take action, she rallies her classmates and community to investigate and confront the issue. As she balances environmental passion with middle-school life, she must decide how far she will go for the river and what “saving the planet” means in her own backyard.

A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars edited by Erin Sharkey

A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars is an anthology of personal essays that rethinks the relationship between Black Americans and the natural world. Each contributor connects with an archival object, ranging from Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac to family photographs and artifacts, to bring together stories of land, memory, identity, and resistance. The collection investigates how Black communities have cared for, and been cared for by, the land even when faced with displacement and systemic injustice. By connecting historical reflection and cultural reclamation, these essays open up fresh perspectives on nature, celebrating resilience, joy, wonder, and the roots of Black presence.

A Barrister for the Earth: Ten Cases of Hope for Our Future
by Mónica Feria Tinta

British-Peruvian barrister Mónica Feria Tinta takes readers inside ten real courtroom battles, from defending a cloud forest in Ecuador to representing the Torres Strait Islanders in a landmark case against state inaction on climate change. Feria Tinta shows how natural resources, including rivers, forests, and endangered species, are gaining legal representation and standing. Through real-world cases and the author’s personal journey, A Barrister for the Earth: Ten Cases of Hope for Our Future presents the case that law can be a driver for large, systemic change, delivering both legal victories and a call to rethink the Earth’s right to thrive.

A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

In the Indigenous-futurism fantasy A Snake Falls to Earth, two characters from parallel worlds encounter intertwined destinies. Nina is a Lipan Apache girl living in modern Texas, and Oli is a young cottonmouth snake-person living in a spirit realm. Their stories begin independently when Nina has to decipher her late great-great-grandmother’s oral stories, while Oli leaves home to find a cure for a friend’s mysterious illness. When a catastrophic event links their worlds, they come together to fight against sinister forces, including a tricky mockingbird and a dangerous cult leader, all while confronting climate change and cultural survival. With alternating perspectives and traditional Lipan narrative, the author creates a mythical, timely adventure.

People the Planet Needs Now by Dudley Edmondson

Featuring first-hand stories from 25 Black and Brown scientists and activists, this conversational collection brings new voices to the conversation on the climate crisis. With full-color photography, People the Planet Needs Now allows for discussions about how “traditional” science often overlooks communities of color and how listening to these communities provides eye-opening insights and real solutions. Author Dudley Edmondson celebrates Black and Brown relationships with nature, emphasizing that their interdependent connections can inspire systemic change.

Educator and Activist: My Life and Times in the Quest
for Environmental Justice by Bunyan Bryant Jr.

The memoir Educator and Activist: My Life and Times in the Quest for Environmental Justice follows the life of Bunyan Bryant Jr. from a segregated childhood in Little Rock and Flint to his work as a pioneering scholar and activist. He brings readers through how he escaped the “soul-killing” conditions of Flint’s Buick plant by pursuing higher education, eventually earning graduate degrees. He went on to build an innovative career as the University of Michigan’s first Black faculty member in environmental studies and later became an architect of the environmental justice movement. Through personal stories and an academic perspective, he argues that while progress has been made for both civil rights and the environment, there is still so much to do.