Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 A little preachy but overall, very informative May 9, 2008
We recycle and are sensible about our power and resource use in our home. While this book offers lots of information and easy ways to reduce our effect on our environment, it is a little preachy. Overall, I found this very useful as part of our story hour theme for Earth Day.
 Greatest book on Earth!!! September 4, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I loved this great book on caring about the environment. It gave me facts and how I could help save the planet by not using my car, recycling and reusing. You Must read this book!
 IT'S NOT ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL POLITICS October 24, 2005
15 out of 21 found this review helpful
I like this little book because it's realistic and doesn't try to use scare tactics. It's not put out by radicals and it isn't trying to get us to take on too much, too fast. Those who politicize the ecology bug me to death. As if taking care of this planet that we fleetingly occupy is about whether you're on the right or the left, where you stand on gun control, taxes, what defines marriage, or whether the school board should remove Huck Finn from the high school shelves. Making the earth's environment better is selfish, because we stand to benefit from it. It's a planet we share, folks, and we're not doing all we could to leave it in good shape for those who are here now or will live on it when our time is done.
Let's get this straight once and for all: being environmentally conscious does not mean you're a tree-hugging liberal! What it means is, you like a planet that doesn't make you, your children, your grandma and your pet golden retriever sick. The Soviets were a leftist nation and they destroyed their ecology past the point of no return. On the flip side, the right-wing American President Theodore Roosevelt, as Republican as can be, has as one of his legacies the establishment of the National Parks System. "Saving" the planet is not the exclusive domain of leftists, nor-saying it again here--does it equate you with "tree huggers" if you try to do something that benefits the environment. I personally like clean air, clean water, a place to take a walk in nature without stepping in a nice glowing barrel of toxic sludge, don't you? I don't care if you're farther right than Sister Attila the Fourth-Grade Nun you can't honestly say you don't want there to be forests for you to go hunting in, or unpolluted rivers left for you to take your grandkids trout fishing in, am I right? And, yes, we ALL can recoil at the well-intended but self-defeating environmental fanatics who alienate the mainstream society of America by being too extreme and dogmatic. This book is not written for those who chain themselves to an endangered species of mollusk and go on hunger strikes to protest a TV show on global warming. This excellent little book is not like that at all. It presents what I think are really worthy ideas for cleaning up around the neighborhood where you live. It sets some nice projects out for kids (and grown ups) to get done and that is surely better than not educating our young people in environmental responsibility.
Okay, let me put it this way: would you rather have a child dear to you outside some weekend picking up litter, planting a tree in the side yard and sorting recyclable materials, or would you rather have that child sitting in front of the TV with a PS2, becoming another statistic in the epidemic of pre-teen obesity? This book is a small step in the right direction, and if it does nothing more than makes someone, whatever the age, think about the connection between personal behavior and the state of the earth's environment, then it's a nice investment of time and money.
Practical, realistic, easy. September 5, 2002
29 out of 31 found this review helpful
I first read this book years ago as a child. Perhaps the few reviewers on here who do not like the book (and use this review as an outlet for their own personal politics) on here do not realize that parents, teachers, community leaders and religious leaders hardly shelter kids from the outside world as it is, and this book will not upset children, ruin their happiness or waste their childhood at all. As a kid, my friends and I readily accepted this book and were happy to carry out many of the suggestions. Adults seem to look down on kids a lot and think that they just want to play all day and have little care for anything but themselves. The things kids love, such as animals and the outdoors, are in danger, and this book lets kids contribute to help saving them. There are plenty of little tips in this book that do not advocate huge, drastic lifestyle changes. This book also does not come across as preachy or arrogant. Overall it is practical and enjoyable to read.
WOW! September 2, 2002
24 out of 26 found this review helpful
This book is totally awesome. I am interested in the environment and since this book includes quotes by kids my age, I feel I am really connected. It makes me feel really cool, like I can really make a difference in the world. And it helps. It tells you ways to help the earth- simple ways. And I learned a lot from it. It has a lot of good, interesting facts in it too.
|
