Teen Books With An Environmental Theme

 

 

 

Recycle This Book  100 Top Children's Authors Tell You How To Go Green

edited by Dan Gutman

With essays from renowned children’s book authors such as Ann Brashares, Jeanne DuPrau, Caroline B. Cooney, Laurie Halse Anderson, Bruce Coville, Gennifer Choldenko, and over 100 others, each piece is an informative and inspiring call to kids of all ages to understand what’s happening to the environment, and to take action in saving our world.

 

 

The Ancient One ~T.A. Barron

While helping her Great Aunt Melanie try to protect an Oregon redwood forest from loggers, Kate goes back five centuries through a time tunnel and faces the evil creature Gashra, who is bent on destroying the same forest.

 

 

California Blue ~David Klass

When John Rodgers discovers a new sub-species of butterfly which may necessitate closing the mill where his dying father works, they find themselves on opposite sides of the environmental conflict.

 

 

Carbon Diaries 2015 ~Lloyd Saci

Global warming has changed the near future where carbon emissions is rationed, hence, energy usage is reduced by 60 percent.  Laura's diary documents how she deals with hygiene short cuts, limited cell phone usage, travel and the overall changes in London reminiscent of an earlier era during World War II.

 

 

Changes in Latitudes ~Will Hobbs

A family trip to Mexico changes Travis' cocky attitudes as he becomes exposed to his brother's consuming interest in saving endangered species, to his parents' problems, and to his own selfishness.

 

 

Earth Girl ~Jennifer Cowan

Sabine becomes an eco-activist blogger code name "earthgirl" who finds first love with Vray another environmentalist.  Ultimately, she hits a cross road between saving the planet or herself.

 

 

The Exchange Student ~Kate Gilmore

When her mother arranges to host one of the young people coming to Earth from Chela, Daria is both pleased and intrigued by the keen interest shown by the Chelan in her work breeding endangered species.

 

 

Exodus ~Julie Bertaggna

Water is rising, the ice caps have melted and Mara is determined to find a way for herself and other refugees to enter the sky cities to survive.

 

 

Green Boy ~ Susan Cooper

Twelveyear old Trey and his seven year old brother Lou, who does not speak, cross the barrier between two worlds, that of their island in the Bahamas, and a land called

Pangaia, and play a mysterious role in restoring the natural environment in both places.

 

 

Flush ~ Carl Hiaasen.

With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his

bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.

 

 

Green Thumb ~Rob Thomas

While spending the summer in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil doing botanical research, Grady discovers a secret language used by the trees to communicate with each other and falls afoul of the dictatorial Dr. Carter, whose motives seem questionable.

 

 

Gypsyworld ~Julian F. Thompson

Kidnapped and taken to utopian Gypsyworld by its king and queen, a group of teenagers is tested to see how they cope in a place where the earth and its gifts are not abused.

 

 

Hoot ~ Carl Hiaasen

Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.

 

 

Hunger Games ~ Suzanne Collins

In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control of a world with diminished natural resources, young people from each of the twelve districts are pitted against against one another in a competition for survival.

 

 

Kite ~ Melvin Burgess

Although the landowner for whom his father works as a gamekeeper hates all birds of prey, Taylor and his friend raise an endangered red kite in secret.

 

 

The Last Book in the Universe ~ Rodman Philbrick

A thousand years in the future, an earthquake destroys much of the planet, and an epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to Earth.

 

 

Life As We Knew It ~ Susan Pfeffer

Through journal entries sixteen year old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes,and volcanic eruptions.

 

 

The Maze ~Will Hobbs

Rick, a foster child, escapes from a juvenile detention facility near Las Vegas and travels to Canyonlands National Park in Utah where he meets a bird biologist working on a project to reintroduce condors to the wild.

 

 

On Different Shores ~Jen McVeity

While participating in the rescue of a beached whale, Australian teenager Tess finally confronts her fear of swimming and begins to resolve her difficult relationship with her father.

 

 

Remote Man ~ Elizabeth Honey

Teens in different countries, on different continents, solve a mystery involving smuggling endangered species. A fun read that proceeds in vivid description and internet chat. (DJ, MTK)

 

 

River Rats ~  Caroline Stevermer

Nearly twenty years after the holocaust called the Flash has destroyed modern civilization, Tomcat and a group of other orphans face danger as they steer an old

steamboat over the toxic waters of the Mississippi River.

 

 

The Spirit Window ~ Joyce Sweeney

A trip to Florida that is meant to heal the rift between her father and her grandmother forces both Miranda and her father to face feelings they have long suppressed; after her Grandmother dies the rift widens when her father wishes to develop the large tract of undeveloped marshland owned by her grandmother.

 

 

Summer Hawk ~Deborah Savage

When her rescue of a baby hawk takes Taylor to a raptor rehabilitation center in rural Pennsylvania, their offer of a summer public relations job seems a step toward her dream of becoming a journalist.

 

 

Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies (book 1) - In a post-apocalyptic future, after a catastrophe created by the oldies that led to a breakdown of technology, Tally aspires to be a Pretty, but starts finding out things about her society that leads her to question how they live. Continued in Pretties, Specials and Extras.

 

 

Whalesong ~Robert Siegel

An ecological fable of Hruna, the humpback whale.

 

 

Write Naked ~Peter Gould

Victor is doing the Thoreau thing by living in his uncle's cabin in the Vermont woods, communing with nature by writing naked.  Along comes Rose Anna, also 16 years old, home schooled, who writes fables about global warming.

 

 

Z for Zachariah ~ Robert C. O’Brien

Seemingly the only person left alive after the holocaust of a war, a young girl is relieved to see a man arrive into her valley until she realizes that he is a tyrant and she must somehow escape.