The Blueberry Award Winners: Great Nature Books of 2022
by Martha Meyer
On March 23, 2023, Evanston Public Library announced that Tera Kelley and Marie Hermansson’s Listen To The Language of The Trees: A Story of How Forests Communicate Underground was the winner of the Blueberry Award, a National Children's Book Award for literature that best supports kids’ connection to and stewardship of the Earth.
The Blueberry Awards, including the 25 honor Books and the 6 Blueberry Changemaker Books, are awarded each year to exemplary children’s books for 3 - 10 year olds that help kids love nature and act on its behalf.
Blueberry Award Criteria:
Books that display excellence in children’s literature in writing, illustration (or photography) and design and their relationship to each other
Books that share nature and sometimes its peril with kids in an age appropriate but truthful way
Books that are grounded in real biology, real science, told truly (at the time of writing)
We are excited to share subsets of this list with The Alliance for Early Childhood community that focus on nature and early childhood. Please find the full list of 2022 Blueberry Awards here, as well as the link to the brochure.
Great Nature Books of 2022 for Young Readers
Board Book
Odd Birds: Meet Nature’s Weirdest Flock by Laura Gehl
Picture Books
Agatha May and the Anglerfish by Nora Morrison and Jessie Ann Foley
Building by Henry Cole
Climb On! by Baptiste Paul
The Coquíes Still Sing: A Story of Home, Hope and Rebuilding by Karina Nicole González
Maybe You Might by Imogen Foxell
Uncle John’s City Garden by Bernette G. Ford
Nonfiction Picture Books
Listen to the Language of the Trees: A Story of How Forests Communicate Underground by Tera Kelley, illustrated by Marie Hermansson
Good Eating: The Short Life of Krill by Matt Lilley
Hello, Puddle! by Anita Sanchez
Hidden Animal Colors by Jane Park
Honeybee Rescue: A Backyard Drama by Loree Griffin Burns
The Longest Journey: An Arctic Tern’s Migration by Amy Hevron
Poetry
Wait - and See by Helen Frost, photography by Rick Lieder
Fiction
Bee and Flea and the Compost Caper by Anna Humphrey, illustrated by Mike Deas
Nonfiction
Lion Lights: My Invention that Made Peace with Lions by Richard Turere and Shelly Pollock
Make Way for Animals! A World of Wildlife Crossings by Meeg Pincus
Our Green City by Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Your Planet Needs You: A Kids' Guide to Reducing Waste and Recycling by Philip Bunting
Martha grew up in Evanston and attended Northwestern University to study primitive narrative art, and is happy to be living and working here still! She’s been working for the Evanston Public Library since 2003 after leaving corporate marketing to raise kids. She has specialized in early childhood literacy as a full time employee, but now, as a semi-retired part-timer, she combines her library and marketing interests by writing the EPL KIDS Newsletter that reaches 13,000 parents, caregivers, and taxpayers. She loves to garden, hike, and eat delicious vegan food; she's raised 2 kids, a chemist and a computer engineer, and both hike every minute they can!