19 Canadian books to read for Earth Day 2025
Earth Day is celebrated around the world on April 22. Here's a list of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and books for kids with themes of nature, conservation and climate change.
Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi
Scientific Marvel is a poetry collection that looks into the history of and current life in Winnipeg. With humour and surprise, it delves into deeper themes of racism, queerness, colonialism and climate rage while keeping personal lived experiences close to the page.
Chimwemwe Undi is a Winnipeg-based poet, editor and lawyer. She was the Winnipeg Poet Laureate for 2023 and 2024. She won the 2022 John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards and her work can be found in Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature and BBC World, among others. Scientific Marvel won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.
In 2020, Undi was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Most recently, she was selected as Canada's 11th parliamentary poet laureate.
Oil People by David Huebert
Oil People weaves together two narratives and timelines to unravel family secrets and the toxic yet powerful nature of oil. The first narrative is the story of 13-year-old Jade Armbruster in 1987, who is living on the family's oil farm, a deteriorating property built by an ancestor, as her parents decide what to do about the land and their business. The other story is that of Clyde Armbruster in 1862 who built the oil farm and the rivalry he fell into with his neighbours — the reverberations of which are still felt by Jade and her family.
David Huebert is a Halifax-based writer who has won the 2016 CBC Short Story Prize and The Walrus Poetry Prize. He is the author of short story collections Peninsula Sinking, which won a Dartmouth Book Award and was a runner-up for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and Chemical Valley, which won the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize.
Speech Dries Here on the Tongue edited by Rasiqra Revulva, Amanda Shankland and Hollay Ghadery
Speech Dries Here on the Tongue is an anthology of poems written by an array of Canadian poets who explore the impact of the changing climate on our mental health — highlighting the fragility of both the environment and our minds.
Rasiqra Revulva is a disabled queer femme writer, editor, multimedia artist, musician and performer. Her previous works include the poetry chapbooks If You Forget the Whipped Cream, You're No Good As A Woman and Sailor, C'est l'heure. Her debut full-length poetry collection Cephalopography 2.0 was longlisted for the 2021 Laurel Prize.
Amanda Shankland is a Ottawa-based poetry and short story writer. She is a PhD candidate in the political science department at Carleton University and holds a master's degree in public policy and administration as well as an honours bachelor's degree in arts and contemporary studies from Toronto Metropolitan University.
Hollay Ghadery is a writer and radio host from rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Her work has been featured in The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review and CBC Parents, among others. Ghadery's memoir Fuse won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award, and the title poem of her poetry collection Rebellion Box won The New Quarterly's Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Prize.
Climate Hope by David Geselbracht
Climate Hope explores the efforts to fight climate change across the world from the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow to the post-wildfire land of Western Canada. The book breaks down jargon and data through interviews, research and reporting to tell real stories in an accessible format.
David Geselbracht is a lawyer and environmental journalist based in the East Kootenays, B.C. His work has appeared in publications including The Globe and Mail and Canadian Geographic.
Our Green Heart by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
Our Green Heart is a deep dive into the science of forests and how protecting them will in turn protect us from the harsh effects of climate change. Diana Beresford-Kroeger writes powerful essays about the natural world drawing on her experiences as a botanist, biochemist, biologist, poet and the last child in Ireland to get a full Druidic education.
Beresford-Kroeger is a scientist of medical biochemistry, botany and medicine and a recipient of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society Kamookak Medal. She has written numerous books about nature including Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest, which won the Arbor Day Foundation Award, To Speak for the Trees, which won the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award and The Global Forest, which she wrote and presented in a feature documentary called Call of the Forest. She lives in Ontario.
Theory of Water by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
In Theory of Water, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson discovers, understands and traces the historical and cultural interactions of Indigenous peoples with water in all its forms. She presents water as a catalyst for radical transformation and how it has the potential to heal and reshape the world in response to environmental and social injustice.
Betasamosake Simpson is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, activist, musician, artist, author and member of Alderville First Nation. Her books include Islands of Decolonial Love, This Accident of Being Lost, Dancing on Our Turtle's Back and As We Have Always Done. Simpson was chosen by Thomas King for the 2014 RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award. This Accident of Being Lost was shortlisted for the Rogers Writer's Trust Fiction Prize in 2017 and the 2018 Trillium Book Award.
Her novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. Her most recent book, a collaboration with Robyn Maynard titled Rehearsals for Living, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.
Homing by Alice Irene Whittaker
Homing is a memoir about the author's experience of abandoning a busy commuter lifestyle to move to a cabin in the woods with her family. The book also touches upon the journey of repairing her fractured relationship with both herself and the natural world.
Alice Irene Whittaker is a writer and environmental leader. She is the executive director of Ecology Ottawa and the creator and host of Reseed, a podcast about repairing our relationship to nature. Whittaker has longlisted for all three CBC Literary Prizes. She was on the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize longlist, the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist and was on the longlist of the 2012 CBC Short Story Prize. Whittaker lives with her family in a cabin in the woods in Quebec.
Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee
Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging is a collection of 14 essays that use the global world of flora to examine how the lives of plants and human beings intersect and connect with each other. Blending memoir, scientific research and history, Jessica J. Lee interrogates displacement, identity and belonging to explore the movement and evolution of individuals and plant species across borders.
Lee is a British Canadian Taiwanese author and environmental historian. She won the 2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the 2021 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature and the 2019 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award. She is the author of Turning and Two Trees Make a Forest, which was championed by musician Scott Helman on Canada Reads in 2021.
We Speak Through the Mountain by Premee Mohamed
We Speak Through the Mountain is a sequel novella to the post-apocalyptic Albertan book The Annual Migration of Clouds. Reid Graham is 19 years old and fighting against both the climate crisis-affected Rocky Mountains and her own chronic illness to make her way to Howse University, a supposed safe haven.
When she arrives, she finds it more and more difficult to forge connections and leave behind the guilt she has of leaving her community. When she is sent word from home, Reid is faced with an impossible decision and a crumbling reality.
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction writer based in Edmonton. Her series Beneath the Rising received nominations for the Crawford Award, British Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards and Aurora Awards.
Her book The Annual Migration of Clouds won the 2022 Aurora Award for best novella. Her other books include The Butcher of the Forest and No One Will Come Back for Us.
Skin by Catherine Bush
Skin is a collection of stories that delves into how acts of intimacy can take on strange and perplexing forms in a world shaped by climate change, ecological disasters and the tumult of viruses. From a man who falls in love with the wind to a woman fixated on washing strangers' feet, the stories explore the unexpected ways human connection is affected by a transforming world.
Catherine Bush is the Toronto-based bestselling author of five novels. Her previous works include the Trillium Book Award finalist Claire's Head and New York Times Notable Book The Rules of Engagement. Her latest novel Blaze Island was a Globe and Mail and Writers' Trust of Canada Best Book of the Year and a 2021 Hamilton Reads Selection. Bush is an associate professor at the University of Guelph's Creative Writing MFA program.
When the Pine Needles Fall by Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, with Sean Carleton
When the Pine Needles Fall tells the story of Canada's violent siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in 1990 from the perspective of Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel who was the Kanien'kehá:ka spokesperson during that time. The book covers her experiences leading up to the siege and her work as an activist for her community since.
When the Pine Needles Fall was also on the Canada Reads 2025 longlist.
Gabriel is a Kanien'kehá:ka, Wakeniáhton, artist, documentarian and Indigenous human rights and environmental rights activist. She lives in Kanehsatà:ke Kanien'kehá:ka Homelands.
Sean Carleton is a historian and professor in Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba. He is also the author of Lessons in Legitimacy.
Devouring Tomorrow, edited by Jeff Dupuis and A.G. Pasquella
From climate change to the declining population of bees, Devouring Tomorrow is a collection of short stories that imagines how the current social, environmental and political issues of our time will affect not only how much food we eat, but what we eat and how we eat it.
Jeff Dupuis is the Toronto-based author of the Creature X Mystery series.
A.G. Pasquella is an American Canadian writer based in Toronto. He is the author of the Jack Palace series, which includes the novels Yard Dog, Carve The Heart and Season of Smoke. His writing has appeared in McSweeney's, Wholphin, The Believer, Black Book, Broken Pencil and Utne Reader.
Crowd Source by Cecily Nicholson
Crowd Source is a poetry collection that parallels the daily migration of crows around metro Vancouver. It examines their flight, interactions with humans and all forms of communication to ruminate on the contemporary climate crisis and social movements.
Cecily Nicholson is an author and professor who has published five books, including From the Poplars, which won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and Wayside Sang, which received the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Nicholson is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and is the 2024/2025 Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Wellwater by Karen Solie
Wellwater is a poetry collection that argues that the economic and climate crises are powerfully entwined. Celebrating persistence in the natural world, Wellwater offers a message that hope is the only way to address these issues.
Karen Solie is the author of several poetry collections, including Short Haul Engine, Modern and Normal, Pigeon, The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out and The Caiplie Caves. She has received many awards, such as the Trillium Poetry Prize and the Griffin Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize. She teaches half-time in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews and spends the remainder of the year in Canada.
Forecast: Pretty Bleak by Chris Bailey
Forecast: Pretty Bleak is the latest poetry collection by P.E.I.-based poet and writer Chris Bailey. The work uses the setting of rural P.E.I. to reflect on themes including climate change, work, family, love and the notion that hope is the platform for better tomorrows.
Bailey is a graphic designer and commercial fisherman based in P.E.I. His writing has appeared in Grain, Brick, The Fiddlehead, Best Canadian Stories 2021 and Best Canadian Stories 2025.
Together, a Forest by Roz MacLean
In Together, a Forest, a curious girl and her classmates explore a forest together. With vibrant illustrations bursting with colour, Roz MacLean shows the children connecting with nature. Joy is excited to be exploring the forest with her class, but when she's asked to choose one thing in the area for a school assignment she is unsure. Then Joy notices that her classmates are all making choices that reflect how they see and interact with the world.
Together, a Forest is for ages 4 to 8.
MacLean is a B.C.-based visual artist and writer and illustrator of children's books. Some of her other works include Violet's Cloudy Day, The Body Book and More Than Words, which was a contender on CBC Kids Reads 2024.
I Would Give You My Tail by Tanya Tagaq, illustrated by Qavavau Manumie
I Would Give You My Tail is a picture book that celebrates a young Inuk child's experience with gratitude and his connections to nature and his family. The story follows a young boy called Kalluk as he leaves his camp to find his grandmother to pass on the news that his mother is about to have a baby.
I Would Give You My Tail is for ages 3 to 7.
Tanya Tagaq is an Inuk writer and Juno Award-winning throat singer. Her first novel, Split Tooth, set in 1970s Nunavut, won the Indigenous Voices Award for best published prose in English in 2019. She also wrote the picture book, It Bears Repeating, illustrated by Cee Pootoogook.
Qavavau Manumie is an artist and Master Stonecut Printmaker from Brandon, Man. He lives in Nunavut.
Mother Earth: My Favourite Artist by Carol Rose GoldenEagle, illustrated by Hawlii Pichette
In the picture book Mother Earth: My Favourite Artist, Carol Rose GoldenEagle encourages children to immerse themselves in the wonder of nature. GoldenEagle reflects on Mother Earth as an artist — from watching a beautiful sunset, to a shiny rock, to the tracks of a bird. This picture book celebrates the wonders of the everyday.
Mother Earth: My Favourite Artist is for ages 6 and up.
GoldenEagle is a Cree and Dene writer, poet, playwright and musician. Her previous books include the novels Bearskin Diary and Bone Black, and the poetry collection Hiraeth. She was named the Saskatchewan Poet Laureate from 2021-2023.
Hawlii Pichette is a Mushkego Cree (Treaty 9) urban mixed-blood illustrator and artist. She was born in Cochrane, Ont., and now lives in London, Ont. Pichette previously illustrated the picture book Benjamin's Thunderstorm, written by Melanie Florence and My Little Ogichidaa, written by Willie Poll.
On Oil by Don Gillmor
In On Oil, Don Gillmor examines how oil has been a constant in the lives of modern society. Gillmor, who worked as a roughneck on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta, looks at the ways our dependence on oil has led to regulatory capture and how the industry has evolved over the decades.
Gillmor is a Toronto journalist and author of novels and nonfiction books, including Canada: A People's History. He has twice been nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award in the young people's literature — text category for The Fabulous Song and The Christmas Orange.
