Book reviews

This lovely children'sbook – the first by Early Years educator and writer Billie Rooney – is a finely-balanced menu of useful, informative text and beautiful, fairly realistic vibrant artwork. A richly illustrated, powerful book that will delight and inform every young reader, inspiring them to become aware and help our wildlife on the move.

Astronomy for Curious Kids offers an accessible introduction to space, from observing the night sky and exploring the Moon and planets to discovering stars and galaxies, inspiring young readers to ask questions, develop curiosity and discover the wonders of astronomy.

From little penguins – often menaced by dogs and cars – through fascinating sharks, deep diving giant squid, and to sea turtles – this marvellous short book describes the animals in beautifully illustrated but still realistic scenes. The end pages include detailed fact pages, and a handy glossary.

In 2019, I published a paper describing David’s radical approaches to sustainability education (McGregor, 2019). Radical means a departure from tradition or mainstream thinking. He frequently expresses his outside-the-box, mind-opening, and mind-bending ideas using parables, puns, metaphors, folklore, poetry, and allegories

Super Questers: the case of the great energy robbery is “an interactive adventure story” by Lisa Moss and Thomas Bernard, illustrated by Amy Wilcox.

Animals under logs and stones is the latest in the Naturalists’ Handbook series from Pelagic Publishing.

Small Gases, Big Effect: this is climate change is a compact (15.5cm square) book that comprises 50 double page spreads divided across 7 sections: The Earth’s climate, Possible causes of climate change, The cryosphere, The oceans, Weather and climate extremes, Ecosystems, and Humans.

Is there anyone in the world who does not have some kind of interaction with the plant kingdom? Consider the food we eat, the landscapes we enjoy, the flowers we value for their beauty and colour, the habitats we acknowledge that shelter and support the amazing wildlife communities – just some of the ways that we understand and appreciate plants.

It's not every day that you think of, or use the words 'salt marsh'. Wetlands, yes, vaulable and quickly disappearing habitats, a habitat type that we are losing each year to drainage to make way for farmland. However the specific label of 'saltmarsh' is not in your roadside cafe.

Just how bad are bananas? I don’t mean as a food; that’s quite a different question. I’m referring to carbon footprints. You might have wondered about this as you unzipped that most convenient and ubiquitous of fruits, given that it will have been carted half-way across the planet to sit in your kitchen.