According Jim Dwyer, author of Where the Wild Books Are: A Field Guide to Eco-Fiction, “Eco-fiction is ecologically oriented fiction, which may be nature-oriented (non-human oriented) or environment-oriented (human impacts on nature).” Here are 5 outstanding eco-fiction books to share with the teens and young adults in your life.
- Protectors of the Wood – Series, by John Kixmiller
The Protectors of the Wood Adventure Novel Series is the story of a group of misfit teens who save the world from climate change.
- The Beast of Cretacea, by Todd Strasser
The Beast of Cretacea (formerly titled The Peril Below) is the story of a group of teens that are sent to other planets to gather resources and bring them back to Earth because all the natural resources have been used up.
- The Dragon Keeper, by Mindy Mejia
The Dragon Keeper, reviewed at Goodreads, is about a zookeeper who “fights to save the animal she loves, even as her own life crumbles around her…” The book “highlights the perils of captivity and the astonishing ways in which animals evolve.”
- Falling Into Green: An Eco-Mystery, by Cher Fischer
Falling Into Green is a mystery and a love story revolving around ecopsychologist, Dr. Esmeralda Green. The novel offers an “intimate look at the myriad ways in which nature defines us.”
- Balance of Fragile Things, by Olivia Chadha
The Balance of Fragile Things is about a multi-cultural American family living in Upstate New York. The plot includes the drama of high school bullies, environmental oddities and parental expectations.
“There is no kingdom like the forests. It is time I went there, went in silence, went alone. And maybe there I would learn at last what no act or art or power can teach me, what I have never learned.” –The Farthest Shore, Ursula K. Le Guin