Sheila Says We're Weird (but we're just green)

by Ruth Ann Smalley, Jennifer Emery (Illustrator)

Overview

* Skipping Stones Honor Award *
* Honor Book, Science, Society of School Librarians International *
* Moonbeam Bronze Award *

Sheila can’t figure out why her neighbors hang their laundry outside instead of using a dryer. And why do they ride their bikes to the library instead of just using the car?

Why do they mow their lawn with a push mower when a gas mower is much faster? But their homemade soup sure tastes good, and she likes picking cherry tomatoes and strawberries in their garden, and it’s pretty cozy to sit around the woodstove in the winter. Are Sheila’s neighbors really weird, or do they have some good ideas going on?   Ruth Ann Smalley writes about green living, fair trade, and health for children and adults. Jennifer Emery has illustrated numerous children’s books.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780884483793
Publisher:	Tilbury House Publishers
Publication date:	05/01/2014
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Ruth Ann Smalley is a holistic educator who writes about green living, fair trade, and health for children and adults. A former literature professor, she currently homeschools with her two children in Albany, New York. They live in a kid-friendly neighborhood, where children run in and out of each other s houses and even the dogs have playgroups. Neighbors gather for porch parties, ice cream socials, plant swaps, book club meetings, musical jam sessions, and winter board game nights. One family even hosts an annual August Kid Wash, where children in swimsuits soap up and enjoy being sprayed by adults with garden hoses!

Jennifer Emery has been illustrating for children for over a decade. Her work includes numerous children's books, including Christmas Gifts, Animal Alphabed, and Moving Day. She also illustrates regularly for the children's magazine Highlights for Children. Jen grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she still lives in a tiny apartment with her border collie, Butler. The two explore her urban neighborhood four to five times daily, witnessing many of the earth-friendly living ideas practiced by Sheila's neighbors in this book.

Read an Excerpt

On Saturdays, we go to the farmer's market. We bring home baskets of apples, cheese, and eggs. Shelia spies us and scooters over.

"Why don't you get your groceries from the store?" she asks.

"We like local food. It's fresher and tastes better when it comes from nearby farmers. And it doesn't use so much energy to get to us."

"That's weird" Shelia says.

What People are Saying About This

Bill McKibben

The only thing weird about this family is how much fun they have—what a lovely reminder of how easy some change is! (Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and eaarth)

Editorial Reviews

"The only thing weird about this family is how much fun they have. What a lovely reminder of how easy some change is!"

Bill McKibben

"A book that helps children understand that as the Sheilas of the world learn more about green living, acceptance will grow."

Sierra Club The Green Life

"For painless and preach-free environmental education, told especially well with spunky, colorful illustrations, read Sheila Says We're Weird to children age six and up."

The Midwest Book Review

Right along with a nosy young neighbor, children get an eyeful of a family's sustainable lifestyle.

Regarding the responses of his little sister's friend (see title) with amusement, the big-brother narrator models green living. He helps his parents plant a backyard garden and carry fresh produce from a farmers' market rather than going to the grocery store. The family cuts the lawn with a hand mower, they hang up the wash rather than chucking it into a drier, they heat the family room with a wood stove and cool it with a ceiling fan rather than using more energy-intensive appliances. Looking skeptical but plainly beguiled, red-haired Sheila takes it all in, just as readers will. Smalley never delivers an explicit message here, and by showing rather than telling, she makes these practices look all the more appealing and doable—idealized though they are in Emery's painted views of lush gardens, cozy indoor scenes and hardworking but ever-smiling adults and children.

A good-humored guide to environmentally responsible behavior, all the more convincing (and refreshing) for being indirect. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews