EfS Reading List

Top Picks

• Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, Janine M. Benyus

• Carbon, Paul Hawken

• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond

• Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart

• Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World, Heidi Hayes Jacobs (ed)

• Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, David Orr

• Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World, David Orr

• Educating for Sustainability with the Brain in Mind, Jaimie Cloud

• Governing the Commons, Elinor Ostrom

• How to Change Everything, Naomi Klein

• Learning and Sustainability in Dangerous Times, Stephen Sterling

• Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins

• Neuroscience of engagement and SCARF: why they matter to schools, Dr. Giselle O. Martin-Kniep

• Quiet Leadership, David Rock

• The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking, David Bollier

• The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals & Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World, Peter M. Senge, Joe Laur, Sara Schley, and Bryan Smith

• The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Thinking in Systems, Donella H. Meadows

• SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, David Rock

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell

• Your Brain at Work, David Rock

• Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink

New Release

• Connected to Place, Matt Biggar (2025)

• Stories from Nora Bateson — “How Our Ways of Knowing Shape Our Collective Future”, written by Nadine Maarhuis, We Are The Regeneration, Oct 2025.

Equity in Sustainability

• One Hen, Katie Smith Milway

• Wangari Maathai : The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees, Franck Prévot

• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, illustrated by Elizabeth Zunion

• One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia, Miranda Paul

• Books to Support Conversations and Thoughts About Race and Racism (K-3)

• Books to Support Conversations and Thoughts About Race and Racism (3-5)

For Educators

• Seven Wonders: Everyday Things for a Healthier Planet, John C. Ryan 

•  Connected Wisdom: Living Stories about Living Systems, Linda Booth Sweeney

• Creating Better Cities for Children and Youth: A Manual for Participation, David Driskell

• When a Butterfly Sneezes, Linda Booth Sweeney

• Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years, David Sobel

• Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things, Alan Thein Durning and John C. Ryan

•  Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation, Sharon Gamson Danks