The Great Big Green Book

By Author / Illustrator

Mary Hoffman, Ros Asquith

Genre

Adventure

Age range(s)

Publisher

Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd

ISBN

9781786030955

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

05-07-2018

Synopsis

\"Think of the future. Can you imagine our planet as beautiful as it used to be? You could be the one to help make it beautiful again, with the things you do and the ideas you have. Your planet needs YOU!\"

Join authors Ros Asquith and Mary Hoffman as they explain what we need for life on Earth and show us the importance of the rainforests and the oceans. In this bumper book of environmentally friendly ideas, they explain that we need to look after our planet, showing how some of the things we take for granted are running out, and how we have polluted so much our planet. As well as facts about our planet, the book is full of brilliant action plans to help save our planet, including ideas for saving water, saving energy, recycling, repairing, growing seasonal food, cooking fresh food, saving on packing, asking questions... and thinking of new inventions and big ideas. This is the eco-friendly guide to helping save the planet that all young children can learn from!

Reviews

From the partnership that brought us The Great Big Book of Families and The Great Big Book of Feelings . The Great Big Green Book is an information book unlike many others. This book is jam packed with fun facts well presented for young minds. Hoffman and Asquith have opted for a much more positive approach to sharing difficult information with young children. The book begins by introducing children to our wonderful world and the unique characteristics of our planet and how it sustains us. We are then lead gently into some of the key issues affecting our Earth and given some simple ideas/short spurts of information as to how we can change this or at least help. The 'go green' information is presented in an eye-catching way, each double page spread is dedicated to a different topic- the headings on each page are light-hearted and catchy for children, surrounded by colour and imagery. I think this will make a massive difference to children wanting to tackle the information on the page as so often we see non-fiction books presenting information in a stark formal manner, using (rightly so) technical vocabulary but often far too much that it becomes inaccessible for children to understand. The book is full of colourful cartoon-like characters that we see participating in and discussing the range of issues such as 'Save water, save energy' and 'Make it new'. Lots of speech bubbles have been used to make the information relatable to the children and in child-friendly language. This book deserves five stars for the number of diverse characters it has managed to incorporate. I found that in itself was interesting to see; lots of different children and adults from various cultural backgrounds as well as a number of children with different physical disabilities included throughout. On the back pages there is a handy glossary and websites for children and teachers to access to discover more. My favourite page is the double page spread titled Ask Questions. The NC requirements for Geography in both KS1 and KS2 states that children should be able to ask and respond to geographical questions. This page is full of great examples of children doing this, I would show this page to my class to encourage them to do the same. This book is light-hearted and talks directly to children. 34 pages / Ages 7+ / Reviewed by Nikki Stiles, teacher