Informative and inspiring, this picture-book profiles ten children, worldwide, who have made a difference, working to solve some of the earth's most pressing environmental ills. From fourteen-year-old Malawian William Kamkwamba (whose story is told more fully in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope), who constructed windmills in order to create the energy needed to irrigate his poverty-stricken village's fields, to seven-year-old Canadian Ryan Hreljac, who, upon learning that so many children in the developing world didn't have clean drinking water, began raising money for a well in Uganda, eventually founding the Ryan's Well Foundation, which has helped build over 600 water and sanitation projects in 16 countries, the stories here emphasize the many ways in which human welfare is directly tied to environmental issues.

Here is the story of Janine Licare, a thirteen-year-old Costa Rican girl who got involved in rain-forest conservation, founding Kids Saving the Rainforest to further her efforts; Adeline Tiffanie Suwana, a twelve-year-old Indonesian girl who, having seen the devastation wrought by the terrible 2001 tsunami, became interested in marine ecosystems and conservation, and founded Sahabat Alam ("Friends of Nature"), which works to help rebuild the threatened coral reefs and mangrove swamps of the world; and Felix Finkbeiner, an eleven-year-old German boy who, inspired by the example of Kenya's Wangari Maathai, launched an effort to get the children of his nation to plant one million trees, eventually going on to found the international children's organization, Plant for the Planet, which promotes such activism the world over.

Thirteen-year-old (professional) Indian magician, Kruti Parekh, who uses her show to promote environmental causes; seventeen-year-old Chinese activist Fang Minghe, who founded Green Eyes China, and monitors local markets for the abuse and sale of endangered species; fifteen-year-old American student Sam Levin, who started a student-run organic garden at his school, that now supplies the cafeteria with produce (with 1,000 pounds extra, donated to needy families); and twelve-year-old Canadian, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who delivered a moving speech to an environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, are all also profiled here. Rounding out the ten is twelve-year-old Aika Tsubota, who used a school assignment as an opportunity to write and illustrate an environmental comic book, which was published shortly after her tragic death.

Combining photographs and painted illustrations with informative text, each two-page spread in Our Earth: How Kids Are Saving the Planet is an inviting exploration of one extraordinary young person, and their fight to save the environment. Young readers will find these stories immensely inspiring - I know I did! ( )