Touch the Earth

This picture book about environmental problems and their solutions is playful and fun and may work as a very basic introduction to the issues. Touch the Earth has some fun interactive elements, successfully involving kids as it teaches concepts such as the directions north, south, east, and west. But it sometimes oversimplifies problems -- for instance, having kids address them merely by touching the flat "buttons" on the page. "Push the FISH button to bring the fish back." When the reader turns the page, fish have magically returned to a clean ocean. Similarly, after the concept of irrigation is explained -- we "bring water to where the land is too dry" -- readers see the desert bloom, but there’s no illustration of how irrigation might actually be brought in. In trying to be kid-friendly, the text sometimes underestimates kids' ability to grasp information -- and their need for it.

Illustrator Smiljana Coh's art has a fun cartoony look. But it strikes an uncomfortable note when it pictures three of the four kids in the plane as white, while all the people in water-challenged areas are brown-skinned. Still, the book might teach kids that our water supply is vulnerable and help develop kids' sense of responsibility.