Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet [Hardcover]

Harriet Rohmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 2009 | Grade Level: 4 and up

This inspiring book presents the true stories of 12 people from across North America who have done great things for the environment. Heroes include a teenage girl who figured out how to remove an industrial pollutant from the Ohio River, a Mexican superstar wrestler who works to protect turtles and whales, and a teenage boy from Rhode Island who helped his community and his state develop effective e-waste recycling programs. Plenty of photographs and illustrations bring each compelling story vividly to life.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–9—The mantra of the environmental movement is "think globally, act locally," and this book offers examples of local heroes who are helping to save the planet. Maps, illustrations, and photographs are used to good effect. Each of the 12 chapters tells the story of a person doing his/her part to preserve our environment. Debby Tewa works to bring solar energy to Indian Country, and Sarah James speaks on behalf of the Gwich'in Indian Peoples of Alaska and Canada who want to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. Judy Bonds, a community activist in West Virginia, works to bring an end to mountaintop removal mining; and Omar Freilla founded ReBuilders Source, a New York City-based company that recycles building materials. Stories come from all across America and include a diverse group of men and women, making this volume of interest to a broad audience. A final section offers information on how readers can get involved in their own communities.—Patricia Ann Owens, Wabash Valley College, Mt. Carmel, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Rather than featuring the usual roundup of environmental heroes, this title spotlights 12 contemporary conservationists who are working to fight pollution in cities, oceans, and wetlands, from Alaska to Mexico City. Many of the featured activists are young people. At age 11, Alex Lin started a campaign in Rhode Island for the safe disposal of electronic waste (“Today’s technology should not become tomorrow’s toxic trash”). Erica Fernandez, a teenage Mexican immigrant in California, led a successful fight to prevent a pipeline that would transport highly explosive gas through her neighborhood. Julia Bonds, a coal-miner’s daughter in Appalachia, is working to replace coal with wind power. The book’s format is lackluster, but the black-and-white photos do show the individuals at work in their communities. The powerful mix of personal stories with crucial environmental and social issues will be a call to action for young readers, who will want to move on to the final section: “How You Can Get Involved.” Grades 6-10. --Hazel Rochman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 110 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (August 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081186779X
• ISBN-13: 978-0811867795
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,320 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Children's Books > Biographies > Social Activists
  • #48 in Books > Children's Books > Science, Nature & How It Works > Nature > Environment

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a gem of a book, September 3, 2009

By 

Ace (East Coast) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I would think that anyone who reads this book would be inspired by the actions of these "everyday" (many of them young) people and the way they have inspired others, and CHANGED their neighborhoods and others for the better.

This book stresses the "Majority of One" concept -- where a person with an idea can bring that idea to successful fruition, no matter how little they have to begin with, in the way of resources (money, tools, authority, prestige).

From a young Hopi woman comes the power of Solar electricity in her reservation -- and overseas, as she travels with her crew (some of them her fellow-students), teaching others about solar electricity and how to implement it in their own village(s).

A young student (11 years old) reads about electronic trash (e-waste) and out of his concern he creates a company that recycles computers and keeps them from polluting the ground water -- and this project too, has gone international.

A young lady (purloining her father's windshield wipers and using them as electrodes!!) discovers a way to clean polluted water.

A woman saves her beloved mountains in West Virginia.

A woman saves her community from fatally-filthy air.

A man posts "Fire your Boss" signs as a prelude to hiring eager young (and old) people to create and maintain self-sustaiing gardens "City Farms".

A famous wrestler in Mexico inspires his adoring fans, young kids, to go out there and keep their world clean and pollution-free. He teaches kids about flood control in their own villages and the importance of ensuring clean water for their familes and for future families in their village. People all over the world watch this huge formidable man on the news as he watches over a group of baby turtles making their way to the sea, and as he makes a plea to protect the birthing waters of endangered whales.

What one person can do!

There are so many other inspiring narratives about The Power of One in this book and the good it can do for ALL.

This is a great book for a young student who is becoming aware of environmental issues, who is signing up for required community projects, scouting projects -- and wants to do something to make a change in her or his world.

This is a great book to be read to pre-students-- little kids who are just becoming aware of their world and their place in it.

This is also a great book for adults (including parents, community leaders, scout masters, teachers, church leaders, anyone who inspires kids and who in turn is inspired by them) who are concerned about environmental issues and pollution.

A little book of this huge magnitude can make a positive impression all who read it and who are inspired to do likewise in their own neighborhoods, communities or villages -- no matter where they live. It tells us that nothing is impossible when you want to make a change for the betterment of all.

This book should be required reading and fodder for discussion groups in schools and clubs all over the world.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How will you help our environment?, September 24, 2009

By 

Barbara Bell (San Carlos, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

With 12 examples of how regular everyday people are making an impact on environmental concerns, readers can see how easy it is to identify what they are passionate about and how to do something about it. Throughout the US and in Mexico, students, teachers, inventors, and masked wrestlers are finding ways to stand out and stand up for their beliefs.

Whether it's getting a big oil company to relocate residents of a polluted town, saving the caribou of the Porcupine River, bringing solar power to a Hopi Indian Reservation in Arizona, or protecting the turtles in San Ignacio Lagoon, these participants started with wanting to help and became the change they wanted to see in the world.

With Rohmer's writing and McLaughlin's illustrations, this is a sure-win for anyone interested in environmental concerns or how to show our students and our children that the impossible has been done before. The chapter on "how to get involved" is brilliant and shows how ordinary people made an extraordinary difference.

This was published by Chronicle Books in support of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will support the council's efforts.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for kids, August 26, 2009

By 

Bobbie Lynn (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heroes of the Environment: True Stories of People Who Are Helping to Protect Our Planet (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I am very happy with the quality of this book. The stories are well written and contain excellent messages about how you can do good things for the environment and for your community at the same time. Even if you didn't necessarily care about the environment very much as a topic specifically, there's a lot to be said for the way these stories show real people who created real change in their communities and sometimes did it by standing up for what they believed in the face of others who weren't necessarily eager to listen.

I actually got this book as something to read from time to time to my six-year-old nephew. I feel like he's probably a couple of years too young to grasp some of the finer points of the sections we've read so far, but he did enjoy them and it gave me openings to talk to him about things like how plants grow and how solar power works.

Each story is just a few pages long, which works well with a kid's attention span. Most pages have some kind of picture to go along with the text, sometimes a photograph and sometimes a drawing. I felt like the illustration style and the pictures they chose to add fit very well with the tone and the target audience of the book.

On the whole, it's well written, it includes enough detail that it explains how big the impact was in some cases without getting so tied up in numbers that it's boring, and it shows some very good examples of people who stepped up and did things to make life better. I highly recommend it for kids in elementary school.