Earth Day is around the corner (April 22nd), and the web is abuzz with activities to doff one’s hat to Mother Earth. That’s probably the easy part though. What will continue to prevail and be done in its aftermath? Will the warm n’ fuzzies of eco-friendly living be mothballed till a year hence? What if anything will be durable in the consciousness and actions of children?

Well, for a start, parents can model habits of reuse and recycling at home – the web has become a huge repository of ideas ever since terms like ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ became household phrases (thanks in no small part to Al Gore’s award-winning documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘).

Additionally, you could help your kids nurture a deeper, long-lasting love for nature and the environment by increasing their awareness of topical environmental issues. For shoring up on children’s books that are centered around the subject of the earth, nature, and green living, here’s a handy list of recommendations borrowed from the Canadian Press and our SmartBean editors –

• Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola (ages 9-12)
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp (ages 12-up)
• What the World Eats by Peter Menzel, Faith D’Aluisio (ages 12-up)
• Cartoon Guide to the Environment by Larry Gonick and Alice Outwater (ages 4-8)
• What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe? by Anna Alter (ages 4-7)
• S is for Save the Planet by Brad Herzog and Linda Holt Ayriss (ages 6-10)
• Insiders: Rain Forests by Richard C. Vogt (ages 8-12)
• The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast by William Plomer and Alan Aldridge (all ages)
• What’s So Bad About Gasoline? by Anne Rockwell and Paul Meisel (ages 5-9)
• 101 Ways You Can Help Save the Planet Before You’re 12! by Joanne O’Sullivan (ages 6-up)
• Earth Day, Ready-to-Read by Margaret McNamara and Mike Gordon (ages 4-6)
• Charlie & Lola: We are Extremely Very Good Recyclers based on characters created by Lauren Child (ages 6-9)
• Michael Recycle Meets Litterbug Doug (ages 4-8) by Ellie Bethel and Alexandra Colombo.
• Earth in the Hot Seat, Bulletins from a Warming World by Marfe Ferguson Delano (ages 9-12)
• The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling by Alison Inches and Pete Whitehead (ages 4-6)
• Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv (For Parents)

For additional ideas, earlier posts on Earth Hour – here and here – are worth reading if you have not done so already.

Its never too late to make a difference, and never too early to educate and inspire a child to be a green citizen. The earth is, after all, our only home.