GET OUT! 150 Easy Ways for Kids and Grown-Ups to Get Into Nature and Build a Greener Future– by Judy Molland
This is an odd little book, and I mean it as a compliment, in the realm of green guides. This book has ideas for beginners and veterans of the green lifestyle alike. Unlike a lot of green books out there, this one is geared towards kids and their parents. I haven’t come across any that focuses so completely on including children in projects.
The ideas are numbered and the paragraphs provide just enough information to point you in the direction and the rest is left up to you and your child. It makes for easy reading for kids and I believe that made my son feel even more a part of our little experiment. We closed our eyes and flipped through the book and whichever number we blindly picked, we decided to do.
Another great thing is either parent or child can take on the role of teacher. For instance, my son, reading the book, informed me that “If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500) sheets with a 100 percent recycled roll, 423,900 trees would be saved ( p.55).” I did not know that and I consider myself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to trivia.
After trying numerous ideas, I got the feeling this book wasn’t just about getting out into nature or going green. In fact, the ideas opened a dialogue between my son and I. We worked together; neither of us telling the other person what to do or that one of us was doing something wrong. We were there in the moment together, sharing more ideas and just being. I learned a great deal about my son’s view of the environment and he about mine.
It wasn’t all seriousness – when we did the art project on pg 71, things got really silly. It’s not every day you go through your garbage with your kids to get art supplies. We tried the bird counting and ended up in giggles because my son kept asking, “How do you know it’s not the same Robin or Cardinal from five minutes ago? Maybe they just keep coming back to see if we’ve moved?”. I may not know the answer to that question or others, but I do know I enjoyed the time spent doing these projects in the book.
GET OUT! 150 Easy Ways for Kids and Grown-ups to Get Into Nature and Build a Greener Future is by Judy Molland and published by Free Spirit Publishing. GET OUT! retails for $10.99 retail. Free Spirit publishing also had other titles available in their catalog, which can be found in the back of their books or on the website. Get Out! also provides a comprehensive list of resources with websites in the appendix.
Get Out! was provided to The Untrained Housewife for the purposes of review. Win your own copy from Untrained Housewife’s Summer Fun Giveaway.
