21st - 28th October Green Libraries Week

Green Libraries Week is an annual celebration of the important role libraries play in schools and the wider community, with a focus on supporting sustainability and tackling climate change. Set up to showcase the creative and innovative work that libraries do to support their communities and help users develop their skills and confidence, Green Libraries Week 2026 will take place from 21 October – 28 October 2026.

The theme for 2026 is Climate Facts for a greener future: Navigating mis- and disinformation in libraries. In the UK this initiative is led by CILIP (the library and information association). Its focus is to highlight how libraries help users evaluate claims, spot misinformation, and find credible, trustworthy evidence regarding climate change and sustainability. 

The week is a showcase of the very best that libraries have to offer, where they explore and celebrate inventive and inspiring activities engaging with local communities and the media to highlight the diverse ways that they are working with users to build skills and confidence at every stage of their lives.

With young students like the ones that use the school library teaching them about sustainability and the environment is a combination of hands-on learning in the school garden or doing STEM activities in their classroom as well as having access to wonderful picture books to further their explorations.

This list of 17 Sustainability and Gardening Books for Kids to Inspire Young Environmentalists

put out by Let's Go Compost is a great place to start. There is also a children's book list on the CILIP website. They also have guidance for how to spot misinformation and disinformation.

24th August Weather Complaint Day

In the Northern Hemisphere they  celebrate Weather Complaint Day on  24th August , when it's finally hot enough to complain about high temperatures! Many of us are still in the habit of complaining about weather and here in Sydney I think we have every right at the moment to be complaining about the rain. It is nonstop and everything is so soggy. Who never whined about the weather? Whether it's raining, cold, or hot, more than ever it seems extreme! Everywhere is affected by climate change and the extremes remind us things have changed weather-wise. 

This is a good time to do a display of all those weather books that are sitting on the library shelves and there is a lot of them. Here are some of the more recent ones:

27th February International Polar Bear Day

I haven't written about Polar Bear Day since 2010, so felt the need to update it. So many wonderful children's books that share the plight of polar bears have been written since then. This topic seems to attract  very good illustrators. See any of these beautiful  books:

• If Polar Bears Disappeared by Lily Williams

• Ice Bear  by Nicola Davies and Gary Blythe

• The Polar Bear by Jenni Desmond

• The Ice Bear by Jackie Morris

• Sea Bear by Lindsay Moore

• Mama Dug a Little Den by Jennifer Ward and Steve Jenkins

If you want more see this Pinterest page.

SDG 13 Climate Action

 

Goal 13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

The rising temperature of the Earth is called “global warming.” If the Earth’s temperature keeps getting hotter, we will feel the effects of it. For example, global warming will melt the Arctic’s sea ice and cause the sea level to rise. If the sea level continues to rise, many islands and countries will struggle to stay above water and people and animals will lose their homes. To avoid this from happening, all of us must do something to help the Earth.

     

Choose a book from here.

A good place to start with young students is to share a book about the shrinking polar icecaps and how the polar bears' habitat is shrinking. They love polar bears (probably because they are majestic and they don't live near them or see them) and there are so many wonderful picture books on this topic. 

However, the students I teach know about the shrinking habitat of polar bears from teachers, parents, documentaries and stunning picture books like Lindsay Moore's Sea Bear, so I would start with Hello, Mr World by Michael Foreman. The students understand what it means to be sick so I think this story where Earth has been personified is an excellent way of introducing what is making our world suffer and talking about it.

Here's the blurb:

A topical picture book about the effects of climate change, ideal for very young children.  Michael Foreman brilliantly shows what climate change is doing to our world and inspires us all to make a difference. Mr World doesn't feel well. He's hot and sweaty and finding it hard to breathe. What will the doctors find when they examine their poor patient? 

This could then be followed up by something more didactic or instructive such as A Climate in Chaos by Neal Layton

Old Enough to Save the Planet  by Anna Taylor, Loll Kirby and Adelina Lirius

or Like the Ocean We Rise  by Nicola Edwards and Sarah Wilkins

From the booklet: (Remember these questions and tasks are designed as post reading for the student who is doing this at home with a parent or in class with a teacher and will only read one book from the list, so the responses need to be very open-ended.)

Ask • Have you heard about how there are now less polar bears? Why is this?

 

• We read...

 

• This story made me wonder what I could do to...