Building a better world together through reading

January 30, 2025
By Janice Biehn
Every year during the first full week of February, Canada celebrates International Development Week (IDW). It’s a time to understand and be proud of how Canadians help to eradicate poverty worldwide.
Together, we contribute to making our planet more peaceful, inclusive and prosperous.
In honour of IDW, Alongside Hope staff and members of the Youth Council (past and present) have curated a reading list for children, youth and adults. Join us as we come together to learn, share stories and create change for a brighter, more equitable world.

What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures. Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice

What is a Refugee? by Elise Gravels
This is a very short children’s book with simple, engaging illustrations. It offers a simple explanation of what a refugee is, including blurbs about famous people who were refugees and quotes from children who were refugees.

All Are Welcome, by Alexandra Penfold
A celebration of diversity and inclusion in a school setting.

Still Hopeful, by Maude Barlow
Barlow counters the prevailing atmosphere of pessimism that surrounds us and offers lessons of hope that she has learned from a lifetime of activism. She has been a linchpin in three major movements in her life: second-wave feminism, the battle against free trade and globalization, and the global fight for water justice.

We Are Water Protectors, by Carole Lindstrom
A children’s story – an actual story, not just a non-fiction style book! – inspired by Indigenous Water Protectors across Turtle Island.

If the World Were a Village: A Book about the World’s People, by David J. Smith, Illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong
First published to wide acclaim in 2002, this eye-opening book has since become a classic, promoting “world-mindedness” by imagining the world’s population — all 6.8 billion of us — as a village of just 100 people. Now, If the World Were a Village has been newly revised with updated statistics, several new activities and completely new material on food security, energy and health. By exploring the lives of the 100 villagers, children will discover that life in other nations is often very different from their own. If the World Were a Village is part of CitizenKid: A collection of books that inform children about the world and inspire them to be better global citizens.

Becoming Kin, by Patty Krawec
Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to “unforget” our history. This remarkable sojourn through Native and settler history, myth, identity, and spirituality helps us retrace our steps and pick up what was lost along the chances to honor rather than violate treaties, to see the land as a relative rather than a resource, and to unravel the history we have been taught.

One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet, by Anuradha Rao
This non-fiction book profiles 20 environmental defenders of color from around the world. Their individual stories show that the intersection of environment and ethnicity is an asset to protecting our planet.

What a Wonderful World, by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss
Inspired by the classic Louis Armstrong song, this book celebrates the beauty of the planet and its people.

All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
An anthology of provocative and illuminating essays and poems from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (book and movie)
When William Kamkwamba was a teenager, there was a terrible drought in his village in Malawi, people had nothing to eat. Being an excellent student and very fond of physics, William decides to save his village from starvation. He finds books on physics in the school library. After studying the books, he builds a wind generator to provide electricity to his family.

My Light, by Molly Bang
Molly Bang celebrates the many wonders of the sun, with radiant words and images that illuminate the myriad ways in which the sun gives us energy and power from its light.Often taken for granted, the sun gives us more than its light. MY LIGHT follows the paths of the sun’s rays, showing the many ways in which we obtain energy from its light. As in COMMON GROUND (Giverny Award for Best Science Picture Book), Bang uses a story to explain the basic concepts behind electricity and our energy.

Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, by Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton shares his own experiences and those of other givers, representing a global flood tide of nongovernmental, nonprofit activity. These remarkable stories demonstrate that gifts of time, skills, things, and ideas are as important and effective as contributions of money. From Bill and Melinda Gates to a six-year-old California girl named McKenzie Steiner, who organized and supervised drives to clean up the beach in her community, Clinton introduces us to both well-known and unknown heroes of giving.

One Plastic Bag, by Miranda Paul
The story of a Gambian woman who started a recycling movement, teaching about environmental issues.

Rainbow Weaver, Tejedora Del Arcoíris, by Linda Elovitz Marshall, Illustrated by Elisa Cavarri
Ixchel, a young Mayan girl who is not allowed to use her mother’s thread to weave, exercises her ingenuity and repurposes plastic bags to create colorful weavings. Includes glossary and author’s note.

Why Are We Here?: A Meditation on Canada, by Mary Jo Leddy
Mary Jo Leddy examines the moral challenges facing Canada in this time of social exclusion and environmental ruin. She focuses particularly on three of our national blind spots — our relationship with Indigenous peoples, immigration, and our poor record of caring for the environment – and addresses the fundamental question, ‘why are we here?’ Leddy skilfully helps the reader ponder this query by paying attention to where we are, concluding that our future depends on a profound shift in our attitudes to this place on Earth we inhabit.

Walking Together, by Elder Dr. Albert D. Marshall and Louise Zimanyi, Illustrated by Emily Kewageshig
A poetic, joyful celebration of the Lands and Waters as spring unfolds: we watch for Robin’s return, listen for Frog’s croaking, and wonder at maple tree’s gift of sap. Grounded in Etuaptmumk, also known as Two-Eyed Seeing—which braids together the strengths of Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing—and the Mi’kmaq concept of Netukulimk—meaning to protect Mother Earth for the ancestors, present, and future generations—Walking Together nurtures respectful, reciprocal, responsible relationships with the Land and Water, plant-life, animals and other-than-human beings for the benefit of all.

Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Monique Gray Smith, Illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt
Drawing from her experiences as an Indigenous scientist, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer demonstrated how all living things―from strawberries and witch hazel to water lilies and lichen―provide us with gifts and lessons every day in her best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass. Adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith, this new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us. With informative sidebars, reflection questions, and art from illustrator Nicole Neidhardt, Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults brings Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation.

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.
For media requests, please email Communications and Marketing Coordinator Janice Biehn at [email protected].