The Blurb On The Back:

Find out how you can be an eco hero at home! Learn how to save energy and water, and how to reduce, reuse and recycle your waste.

Then take our eco hero quiz!

BE AN ECO HERO! AT HOME was released in the United Kingdom on 13th January 2022.  Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

You can order BE AN ECO HERO! AT HOME by Florence Urquhart and Lisa Koesterke from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

The Review (Cut For Spoilers):

Florence Urquhart is an experienced non-fiction writer for children.  Lisa Koesterke is a German-Australian illustrator, designer and visual thinker.  Together they’ve produced an easy-to-understand guide for children aged 5+ about being more environmentally aware in the home and why it’s important to save resources.  It’s one of a series and a good way of introducing young readers to a vitally important topic and as such is worth checking out.  

This book is part of a wider series aimed at teaching children to be more environmentally aware in a number of areas: in the community on the move and outdoors.  This book focuses on the home and Urquhart looks at saving water and energy and why this is important before moving onto why you should seek to reduce, reuse and recycle.  The language is simple so young readers will be able to follow it and Koesterke’s colourful illustrations (which have good representation so people of colour are included) really help to emphasise the points that Urquhart is making.

My only real criticism of the book is that some of the references are a bit old-fashioned, e.g. there’s a page where Urquhart talks about turning items like CD players off standby and I’m not sure how relevant that is to 5-year-olds these days.  In fact, I’d have liked to have seen a few more references to things like computers, game systems and phones because I think the readers will be more familiar with them and thus find it easier to make the connection with the message of the book.  

The book ends with a useful quiz so that readers can test what they’ve learned in the previous pages plus there’s a page setting out some useful resources for readers and their parents/teachers to find out more if they’re interested.  In fact, I think that this is a good book for young readers to tackle with a grown up because it allows for wider discussion about what’s a serious subject.  

Ultimately, I think this is a decent introduction for young readers about a vitally important topic and as such, is worth checking out.