Our Favorite Earth Day Books
Board Books
A Children’s Book Council Hot of the Press Selection
A is for annuals
B is for bees
C is for compost
It’s time to get your hands dirty! With L for leaf, N for nursery, and S for seeds, going from A to Z has never been so fresh. Take an alphabetized trip through the garden and discover the plants, animals, and tools that make gardening fun!
$9.99
In this hilarious book of animals, artist Gabe Pyle presents fourteen beloved animals who are definitely not an octopus—or are they? Observant youngsters will love uncovering each octopus cleverly disguised in 14 animals’ shapes. Based on the immensely popular Threadless t-shirt, 14 Animals (That Are Definitely Not an Octopus) is a fresh, witty romp through the animal kingdom that even adults will find hard to resist.
$9.99
good morning, world!
i love you so,
and i’m very glad to say hello.
From sunshine to an extra big spoon, there are so many things in the world to be thankful for! Luckily, showing gratitude can be as simple as waving and saying, “I love you!” With an adorable rhyme, stylish illustrations, and a positive mindset, Good Morning, World—I Love You So builds a lifelong habit of gratitude and self-care for kids. Take a moment with this board book to soak in the world and teach your child to live a glass-half-full kind of life.
$9.99
Picture Books
A Children’s Book Council Hot of the Press Selection
All around the world, animals that were once thriving are now endangered, from the black-footed ferret to the kakapo. Eventually, these amazing animals could be lost. With this fully illustrated guidebook + sound pad, kids can learn about the calls, snorts, squeaks, and roars of 14 endangered animals, discover the characteristics that make them special, and see how we are helping bring them back from the edge of extinction. Hear Them Roar: 14 Endangered Animals from Around the World will make sure these animals are around for many generations to come!
$24.99
She is the Queen. The matriarch.
She leads her daughters and their daughters.
Inspiring text and striking illustrations follow the empowering journey of an elephant matriarch as she leads her family through the wilds of Africa. With facts about African elephants on every spread and a message that will encourage young girls to be the trailblazers of their generation, She Leads offers an incredible story and an unforgettable tribute to the strength of a true leader.
Open your eyes, princess. One day you will lead.
$16.99
He is the king. He leads his family, his troop.
His silver back shows his age and experience.
He guides them through thick forests and steep mountains.
The majestic mountain gorillas live in family groups, led by a powerful silverback. Juxtaposing the apes’ awesome strength and surprising gentleness, He Leads tells the story of family loyalty and love. With stunning, lifelike illustrations and facts on each page, this beautiful picture book is a monument to these endangered gentle giants.
$17.99
They are the leaders.
The creators of the pack.
She digs the den, where their young will grow.
He patrols the territory and brings her food while she cares for the helpless pups.
As seasons pass, and new litters arrive, the pack grows and all work together to raise the young.
A wolf’s piercing howl can carry up to 10 miles, raising goosebumps on even the most intrepid camper’s skin. But the gray wolf is far from a simple predator. An incredible combination of teamwork and instinct has helped wolf packs survive, despite being endangered in most of North America. With a mother wolf and father wolf leading the pack–their family–together, the cubs grow and learn the skills they need to start their own pack someday. With stunning, lifelike illustrations and facts on each page for grownups or older children who want a deeper dive, this beautiful picture book is a monument to these majestic packs.
$17.99
Fruits and vegetables all taste great,
but how did they end up on your plate?
The fresh and colorful foods you know
came from farms—that’s where they grow!
Some grow underground and some hang from trees.
Can you find them all? Let’s look and see!
Every fruit, vegetable, grain, and legume has its own story: Where do they grow? How do they taste? And how do they impact our bodies and the world around us? In cooperation with Kitchen Connection, an organization committed to improving our food system through education, this colorful picture book introduces readers to the concepts of biodiversity, reducing food waste, and proper growing conditions for different crops in simple, accessible language. With cool facts and challenges throughout, fun rhyming verse, and charming illustrations, How Does Our Food Grow? tells the stories of more than a dozen of your favorite fresh foods. Knowing that our food choices make a difference in our health and the health of our planet empowers us to choose wisely. The more we know, the better we grow.
$17.99
How-To Books
When a crisis hits, we all wish we could be a little more self-sufficient. With Breaking the Grid, you can learn to live completely off the grid or just be a little more environmentally conscious. In this comprehensive guide, you can find step-by-step photographed instructions for everything from making your own paper products to microgardening, from building furniture to harnessing solar power, and from making your own brown sugar to sewing sutures in an emergency situation. With projects for first-time gardeners and hardcore homesteaders alike, there’s something for everyone!
$29.99
Today’s liquid commercial lotions have more toxic chemicals than we want to admit. Homemade liquid lotions have a shelf life of only a couple of weeks. Hard lotion is the solution for those interested in avoiding commercial products or lotions with short shelf lives and who want smooth, soft skin.
Amberlee, the owner of the noted Amberlee’s Apothecary and full-time chemist, and Caleb Warnock, the self-sufficiency expert, have teamed up to provide easy-to-make hard lotion solutions for your skin needs. With key health ingredients like coconut and avocado oils, hard lotions are simply the best solution to the skin you want. And, creating your lotion at home is fun and far less expensive than the commercial alternatives.
$9.99
With simple cheesemaking techniques and expert advice, the Backyard Renaissance Collection brings you the healthier, more cost-effective alternative to store-bought, processed cheese. Author Caleb Warnock teaches readers how to make twelve varieties of cheese using techniques for both the beginning cheese chef and those interested in self-reliant recipes.
In this expanded second edition, readers will have access to even more recipe varieties, including:
- Cheddar
- Parmesan
- Mozzarella
- Cottage cheese
- Cream cheese
- Self-reliant cheese, and more!
$7.95
Tired of tilling your garden? Why till when Mother Nature can do it for you, saving you time and money? Caleb Warnock, self-sufficiency expert and author of the Backyard Renaissance Collection, provides a foolproof method to toss your tiller and have the best garden in the neighborhood.
Armed with fifteen reasons you’ll never have to till your garden again and still have the bumper crop that will be the envy of Farmer John, No-Till Gardening teaches a better, simpler way to garden.
Includes:
- a history of garden tilling;
- using no-till method to reduce weeds by 90 percent;
- how to create a self-seeding, no-till garden;
- how to never purchase fertilizer again;
- and much more!
$9.99
In the first aquaponic book to provide information on lawns, gardens, and vertical gardens, self-sufficiency expert Caleb Warnock shows us how fish, plants, a flower bed, water, and a drain combine to create a masterful ecosystem that can sustain your family.
Aquaponic gardening mimics nature. In her simplest form, Mother Nature creates a self-sustaining system in which water, animals, and plants combine to help each other. Creating your own aquaponic garden using this natural cycle is simple, cost-effective, and sustainable.
In an aquaponic garden, fish live in the water and produce waste; when this “fish water” is used to water the garden, the soil (along with your garden) is naturally enriched and fertilized. Meanwhile, the water is effectively filtered by the soil. When the filtered water returns to the fish pond, the fish continue to eat and grow, and the cycle continues.
The advantages are endless. Aquaponic gardens:
- use far less water because water returns from the garden to the pond in a cycle;
- need no purchased fertilizer;
- create naturally rich, sustainable, chemical-free soil;
- grow larger, healthier plants, which produce more food;
- can produce harvestable fish;
- dramatically reduce the need to weed with no-till methods (see the No-Till Gardening book in this series);
- provide a peaceful, meditative water feature for the backyard;
- and bring the joy of having fish to the backyard garden.
$12.95
Many gardeners give up making backyard compost in frustration—the compost pile smells, it requires too much work to turn the heap, and the process requires too many ingredients and too much attention. Gardeners who have used compost barrels or kits know that their experience ends in one way: a smelly barrel that, after months of care, produces only a tiny amount of compost. What to do? Return to the way that compost has been made for centuries—in shallow pits. With this method, the compost never needs to be turned, never smells, and is ready in half the time. Any backyard gardener can make volumes of sustainable compost without any work. Shallow pit composting works with Mother Nature, letting her do the work!
$9.99
Caleb Warnock, the author of the bestselling Backyard Renaissance Series, provides the most understandable and important look at the health benefits of water kefir to date. Using his decades of self-sufficiency experience, Caleb makes making kefir simple and easy enough for anyone to have success brewing their own water kefir.
Includes:
- The history of water kefir
- Health benefits
- Simple step-by-step instructions
- Recipes
- Frequently asked questions
$9.99
Caleb Warnock, the author of the bestselling Backyard Renaissance Series, provides the most understandable and important look at how to garden successfully in Utah to date. Using his decades of self-sufficiency experience, Caleb makes Utah gardening simple and easy enough for anyone to have a successful harvest the pioneers would be proud of.
Caleb covers:
- How to create a permanent solution for your garden problems
- How to have a low-water garden in one of the driest climates in the US
- How to have your garden be 95 percent weed-free!
$9.99
When you plant the right varieties of heirloom vegetables, you can harvest huge volumes of fresh food from small garden plots and container gardens. Self-sufficiency expert Caleb Warnock provides step-by-step directions for designing, planting, and harvesting a tiny garden for big harvests that can really feed your family.
$12.99
When you are proofing (raising) bread dough, there is nothing better than a thermal oven. The consistent, long-lasting warmth allows the bread to be spongier and fluffier than any other method. No wonder people have used thermal ovens to raise bread for centuries!
Caleb Warnock’s clear instructions and experienced advice allow readers to inexpensively create and use a homemade thermal oven that will proof up to eight loaves of bread at one time or two trays of cinnamon or dinner rolls. This fantastic addition to the Backyard Renaissance Collection includes:
- instructions on how to create a one-of-a-kind thermal oven for only $20;
- instructions on how to make your oven portable and use it as an oven, a freezer, a cooler, or a heat bag;
- how to make your own yeast;
- multiple recipes;
- Caleb’s bread-making tips and tricks;
- and much more in this tiny book packed with bread-making secrets.
$5.95
Viili Perpetual No-Cook Homemade Yogurt is the perfect introductory booklet to viili, a yogurt-like, traditional Finnish dish which never needs to be cooked and is made entirely on the countertop by pouring milk into a starter (the residue of the yogurt you just used). Yogurt making has never been easier!
With expert advice from self-sufficiency expert Caleb Warnock, Viili Perpetual No-Cook Homemade Yogurt includes the history of viili; where to get a start; how to use it with pasteurized milk, raw milk, and powdered milk; how to store it; how to keep the yogurt sweet; specific scientific health benefits; and twenty delicious recipes.
$7.95
Self-sufficiency expert Caleb Warnock teams up with certified master herbalist Kirsten Skirvin to write Herbal Beauty: All-Natural Skin, Body, and Hair Care, a 76-page booklet packed with tips and recipes.
Advice and recipes for homemade beauty products include:
- All-natural shampoo
- Skin care
- Lotion
- Beauty products
$7.95
Want to eat healthy? Limited on time?
Authors Caleb Warnock and Lori Henderson have teamed up to create 15-Minute Mindful Meals that will help you use natural produce to create filling and satisfying meals.
$9.95
Planting your own garden can cut down your grocery bill, but few people have the time to cultivate a big harvest every year. Self-sufficiency expert Caleb Warnock shares his expertise in creating a permaculture food forest: a garden that you plant once and then leave in the hands of Mother Nature for years to come. Best of all, this natural, sustainable, and low-maintenance garden can succeed in any climate, and Growing a Permaculture Food Forest can show you how.
This compact guidebook includes:
- Lists of the best flowers & herbs for food forests
- Wild edibles for food forests
- What NOT to plant
- Sustainable harvesting, and
- So much more!
Seasonal planting and constant weeding are things of the past! With a permaculture food forest, you can feed your family with homegrown vegetables without all the fuss.
$9.99
There’s nothing better than homemade jam, but every home canner knows your jelly would just be syrup without pectin. Commercial pectins are filled with dextrose and require massive amounts of sugar to set, but you can make your own fruit pectin with this detailed guidebook. Self-sufficiency expert Caleb Warnock provides easy-to-follow instructions for making your own fruit pectin to use in jams and jellies with no unwanted fillers. Making natural pectin has never been easier!
$9.99