WE'RE GOING GREEN!

A boy realizes how his invention and other contributions can help the environment in this illustrated children’s book from a husband-and-wife team.

Noah Fairley, a White boy with big blue eyes, is a bit nervous about making his presentation to the Inventor’s Fair, focused this year on ways to protect the environment. He’s spent many weekends (and his own money) doing research and tinkering with his project. Being able to effect real change matters to Noah, but can his little contribution do that? As he waits his turn, he listens carefully to his classmates’ addresses. Each explains an important environmental challenge and offers a homemade device to help meet it. For example, Leila Tanaka reports that greenhouse gases created by fossil fuels trap heat, harming the climate and wildlife. Her invention is a “solar tree,” realistic but artificial, whose leaves are solar panels that collect and store clean, renewable energy. As he listens, Noah gets ideas to enhance his own invention, which is a remote-controlled device that scoops up plastic and garbage from the ocean so that it can be recycled. Noah’s invention inspires his family and others to go green, and he realizes that even small changes can make a difference. In Book 4 of their If Not You, Then Who? series, the Pridhams provide solid information about climate change, habitat loss, water conservation, and similar subjects. Noah’s idealism is appealing, and the Inventor’s Fair, where kids explain things to kids, makes the concepts approachable and stokes enthusiasm for helping the environment. Illustrating her latest children’s book, Rouaux delivers digital images that show with clarity and charm how the inventions work; most characters depicted are White, but there’s some diversity. The work includes resources for learning more information and taking action.

An understandable, fun introduction to environmental issues that could spark ideas for green inventions.