Books about Water or Water Themes

Water Related Books

Book Title Author Description Classroom Resources Action
Young Water Protectors: A Story about Standing Rock (2020) Aslan Tudor, Kelly Tudor, and Jason Eaglespeaker At the not-so-tender age of 8, Aslan arrived in North Dakota to help stop a pipeline. A few months later he returned - and saw the whole world watching. Read about his inspiring experiences in the Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock. View
Where the Crawdads Sing (2018) Delia Owens In late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Where the Crawdads Sing Resources View
What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City (2018) Mona Hana-Attisha The dramatic story of the Flint water crisis, by a relentless physician who stood up to power. What the Eyes Don't See Resources View
Welcome to Paradise (2010) Mahi Binebine Seven would-be immigrants gather one night near the Strait of Gibraltar to wait for a signal from a trafficker that it is time to cross. While they wait, their stories unfold View
We Are Water Protectors (2020) Carole Lindstrom and Michaela Goade When a black snake threatens to destroy the Earth and poison her people's water, one young water protector takes a stand to defend Earth's most sacred resource. View
Voices in the Ocean (2015) Susan Casey Inspired by a profound experience swimming with wild dolphins off the coast of Maui, Susan Casey set out on a quest to learn everything she could about these creatures. Her journey takes her from a community in Hawaii known as ýDolphinville,ý where the animals are seen as the key to spiritual enlightenment, to the dark side of the human-cetacean relationship at marine parks and dolphin-hunting grounds in Japan and the Solomon Islands, to the island of Crete, where the Minoan civilization lived in harmony with dolphins, providing a millennia-old example of a more enlightened coexistence with the natural world. View
Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink (2019) Seth M. Siegel A book full of shocking stories about contaminated water found throughout the country and about the everyday heroes who have successfully forced changes in the quality and safety of our drinking water. View
This Raindrop: Has a Billion Stories to Tell (2020) Linda Ragsdale and Srimalie Bassani This beautiful tale follows a raindrops journey on Earth. It explains how Earth has depended on the same water supply throughout its existence by flowing and falling all around us, fueling and forming what we have seen and used for millions of years. View
The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family (2019) Ibtihaj Muhammad With her new backpack and light-up shoes, Faizah knows the first day of school is going to be special. It's the start of a brand new year and, best of all, it's her older sister Asiya's first day of hijab--a hijab of beautiful blue fabric, like the ocean. View
The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy (2018) Anna Clark The Poisoned City recounts the gripping story of Flintýs poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure and the erosion of democratic decision-making. Poisoned City Resources View
The Optician of Lampedusa (2016) Emma-Jane Kirby The only optician on the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean is an ordinary man in his fifties, who used to be indifferent to the fate of the thousands of refugees landing on the coast of the Italian island. One day in the fall of 2013, the unimaginable scale of the tragedy became clear to him, and it changed him forever: as he was out boating with some friends, he encountered hundreds of men, women and children drowning in the aftermath of a shipwreck Optician of Lampedusa Resources View
The Old Man and the Sea (1952) Ernest Hemmingway Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Old Man and the Sea Resources View
The Great Lakes Water Wars (2018) Peter Annin Destined to be the definitive story for the general public as well as policymakers, The Great Lakes Water Wars is a balanced, comprehensive look behind the scenes at the conflicts and compromises that are the past-and future-of this unique resource. Great Lakes Water Wars Resources View
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (2017) Dan Egan In an age when dire problems like the Flint water crisis or the California drought bring ever more attention to the indispensability of safe, clean, easily available water, The Death and the Life of the Great Lakes is a powerful paean to what is arguably our most precious resource, an urgent examination of what threatens it and a convincing call to arms about the relatively simple things we need to do to protect it. Death and Life of the Great Lakes Resources View
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) Mark Twain The bookýs narrator is Huckleberry Finn, a youngster whose artless vernacular speech is admirably adapted to detailed and poetic descriptions of scenes, vivid representations of characters, and narrative renditions that are both broadly comic and subtly ironic. Huckleberry Finn Resources View
Stronghold: One Man's Quest to Save the World's Wild Salmon (2019) Tucker Malarkey Stronghold is Tucker Malarkeyýs eye-opening account of one of the worldýs greatest fly fishermen and his crusade to protect the worldýs last bastion of wild salmon. View
Standing With Standing Rock (2019) Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon Through poetry and prose, essays, photography, interviews, and polemical interventions, the contributors reflect on Indigenous history and politics and on the movements significance. View
Saving Arcadia: A Story of Conservation and Community in the Great Lakes (2017) Heather Shumaker The story spans more than forty years, following the fate of a magnificent sand dune on Lake Michigan and the people who care about it. View
Pandora's Locks: the Opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway (2009) Jeff Alexander The story of politicians and engineers who, driven by hubris and handicapped by ignorance, demanded that the Seaway be built at any cost. It is the tragic tale of government agencies that could have prevented ocean freighters from laying waste to the Great Lakes ecosystems, but failed to act until it was too late. View
Night Flying Woman (1983) Ignatia Broker This book provides an amazing narrative about the time of first contact between Europeans and Indigenous people. Here is a quote: "The Ojibway believe that one's last journey is made through churning waters." Oral History Recording with the Ignatia Broker View
Heart of Darkness (1899) Joseph Conrad It is a short novel about Charles Marlow's experience as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa Heart of Darkness Resources View
Flint Fights Back: Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Flint Water Crisis (2018) Benjamin J. Pauli An account of the Flint water crisis shows that Flint's struggle for safe and affordable water is part of a broader struggle for democracy. View
Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont (2019) Robert Bilott Representing a single farmer who was convinced the creek on his property had been poisoned by runoff from a nearby DuPont landfill, Rob Bilott ultimately discovers the truth about PFAS. View
Alba and the Ocean Cleanup (2020) Lara Hawthorne Alba the fish has spent her entire life collecting precious objects that drift down to the ocean floor. But over the years, Alba notices her collection is losing its sparkle and that the world is changing. There is trash everywhere! View
A River Runs Through It (1976) Norman Maclean Based on Macleanýs own experiences as a young man, the bookýs two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. A River Runs Through It Resources View

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