Can a shark, a handful of worms and a bedtime story teach children to care for the planet?

It starts with a worm in the garden

There is something amusing about watching Cyrus investigate the garden. He can spend ages crouched over a patch of soil, poking around with a stick and examining whatever unfortunate creature happens to cross his path. A worm is a discovery, a beetle deserves closer inspection and a snail making its way across the patio needs an audience.

I approach these encounters with rather less enthusiasm. Don’t get me wrong, I like the garden, especially when somebody else has done the gardening, but I draw the line at things crawling up my arm. Cyrus doesn’t share my reservations. He wants to know where everything lives, what it eats and whether we can keep it. The answer to that last question is generally no.

It has made me think about how we introduce children to the environment. We spend a great deal of time telling them to recycle, switch off lights and avoid wasting water, but we overlook something obvious. Children are already interested in nature, and they don’t need a lesson about biodiversity to find a worm fascinating.

There is no shortage of advice about raising environmentally responsible children. Parents are encouraged to buy sustainable toys, reduce plastic, choose reusable products and think carefully about everything they bring into the house. Much of it makes sense, although I sometimes wonder whether we have managed to turn caring for the planet into yet another thing parents are expected to get right.

What I can do is encourage him to take an interest in the world around him. And one of the easiest ways to do that is through books.

Two picture books have caught my attention: Lark The Shark by Natalie Newman and Dave Explores The Great Outdoors by Nicky Gould. One introduces children to pollution in our oceans, while the other takes them into the garden to discover the insects and other small creatures living there.

Both are written for younger readers, with colourful illustrations, rhyme and characters that children can become attached to. Neither requires a parent to deliver an environmental lecture afterwards.

Lark the Shark: there’s more to sharks than Jaws

Sharks have had a difficult time in popular culture. Ever since Jaws, generations of adults have regarded them as creatures best admired from the safety of dry land. I can barely hear that familiar film music without imagining something daangerous approaching beneath the water.

Natalie Newman’s Lark The Shark offers a different view. Lark is a friendly shark who loves his underwater home and wants to keep it clean. Rather than terrorising swimmers, he is concerned about the rubbish that humans leave behind.

The book was co-written with Newman’s young son Henry, which is a lovely detail in itself. Newman is a mother of two who is passionate about children’s literacy, and the story grew out of the sort of shared imagination that often develops when parents and children read together.

The illustrations are bright and busy, with plenty of underwater life to examine. Lark is an appealing character, and the rhyming text makes the story easy to read aloud. I have always liked children’s books with a good rhythm, particularly when you are reading them for the third time and would quite like to go downstairs.

There is a serious subject behind the colourful pages. Plastic pollution is a considerable problem for marine life, and explaining that to a young child isn’t particularly straightforward. You want them to understand why rubbish in the sea is harmful without leaving them frightened about the fate of every fish in the ocean.

Newman handles this by keeping the story focused on Lark and his home. Children can understand why he doesn’t want rubbish floating around where he lives. It is a much simpler starting point than explaining the wider consequences of marine pollution.

One of the lines describes how the sea begins to glitter when the litter is removed. I rather like that image. It gives children something cheerful to associate with cleaning up the ocean, rather than concentrating entirely on the damage.

Cyrus was particularly taken with Lark. He liked the idea of a friendly shark who wanted to clean the sea, and the story prompted questions about why people throw rubbish into the water and what happens to animals that encounter it.

It also gave us an opportunity to talk about sharks themselves. They are so often portrayed as dangerous that it is easy to forget they are animals with an important place in marine ecosystems. Many shark species face threats from fishing and human activity, yet they rarely receive the same sympathy as dolphins or turtles.

I wouldn’t claim that reading Lark The Shark has transformed our household into a centre for marine conservation. But it has made Cyrus think about what happens to rubbish when it is left behind, and that seems a perfectly reasonable achievement for a picture book.

The next time we visit the beach, I suspect he will be looking for litter as well as shells. I shall have to remember to take a bag.

Lark The Shark is written by Natalie Newman, co-written with Henry and published by Austin Macauley Publishers.

Dave explores the great outdoors: an appreciation of worms, whether I like them or not

From the ocean, we return to the garden, which is where Nicky Gould’s Dave Explores The Great Outdoors comes in. The book introduces young children to the insects and other small creatures that live around us. There are bees, butterflies, beetles and all manner of minibeasts, presented through rhyming poetry and detailed illustrations.

I have to admit that insects are not generally my favourite subject. Butterflies are lovely, bees are welcome provided they don’t come too close, and spiders are best left to conduct their business somewhere I cannot see them. Worms, meanwhile, are perfectly acceptable as long as they remain underground.

Cyrus has no such concerns. He is quite happy to pick up a worm, examine it carefully and bring it over to show me. I usually respond with an expression of interest while quietly hoping he doesn’t decide to put it in my hand.

Gould’s book encourages children to look at these creatures differently. Rather than treating them as things to avoid, she shows them as part of the natural world, each with something to do.

The illustrations are full of detail, which makes the book particularly enjoyable for children who like to stop and examine every page. The rhyming text is easy to follow, and there are little facts woven into the story that give parents something to discuss afterwards.

There is also a double-page spread of minibeast information at the end. I particularly like this because Cyrus is at the age where finishing a story rarely means finishing the conversation. One question leads to another, and before long I find myself trying to explain something about the natural world that I haven’t thought about since school.

We talked about worms and why they are important for healthy soil, as well as bees and butterflies and the part they play in pollination. These aren’t subjects I would ordinarily introduce over breakfast, but a children’s book makes them much easier to discuss.

We also spent a surprising amount of time debating which insects we would least like to find in the bath. I remain firmly opposed to anything with eight legs, although Cyrus seemed to think I was being unreasonable.

What I enjoyed most about Gould’s book was the way it encouraged us to look more closely at our own garden. There is quite a lot happening out there when you stop to pay attention. Most of it goes unnoticed because we are too busy cutting the grass, pulling up weeds or trying to persuade children to come indoors.

Worms help break down organic matter and improve the soil. Bees and butterflies visit flowers, while other insects provide food for birds and small animals. It is a complicated little world, and one that children seem perfectly happy to spend time investigating.

Gould’s Tots Outdoors series develops this interest in nature, encouraging children to get outside and learn about the creatures they encounter. I suspect Cyrus would happily spend an entire afternoon looking for minibeasts if I let him. I might even join in, provided he agrees to keep the worms to himself.

Have we made eco-friendly parenting unnecessarily complicated?

There is an enormous amount of information available about raising environmentally conscious children, and not all of it is particularly helpful.

I have seen enough photographs of immaculate playrooms filled with beautiful wooden toys to know that my own house is unlikely to feature in a sustainable living magazine. We have plastic toys, things that flash and make noises, and the occasional mysterious object that appears to have come from a party bag several years ago.

I would like to make better choices where I can, but I also think we need to be realistic about family life. Children grow, interests change and not everything can be reused or repaired. Sometimes you buy what is available, what you can afford or what your child desperately wants for Christmas.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about waste or the environmental impact of what we buy. It simply means that teaching children to care about nature involves more than purchasing the right products.

Cyrus doesn’t know whether a toy has been marketed as sustainable. He does, however, understand that a snail shouldn’t be deliberately hurt and that rubbish doesn’t belong in the sea. He knows plants need water and that bees visit flowers. These are ordinary things, but they give him a starting point for understanding how living things depend on their surroundings.

I also think there is a danger of making environmental issues unnecessarily frightening for younger children. Climate change is serious, and children should learn about it as they grow older, but I don’t want Cyrus to feel personally responsible for problems created long before he was born.

At his age, I would rather encourage an interest in wildlife, explain why we should look after our surroundings and answer his questions when they arise. There will be plenty of time for the more complicated conversations.

Why children need to get outside and get muddy

Living in the North East means accepting that outdoor activities frequently involve rain. If we waited for warm sunshine before leaving the house, we would spend a considerable amount of time looking through the window.

I can’t pretend that I always relish the prospect of another muddy walk. There are days when I would much rather stay indoors with a coffee, particularly when the weather is miserable and the washing basket is already full.

But Cyrus rarely seems bothered by the conditions. A damp garden can be just as interesting as a sunny one, especially when rain has brought the worms to the surface.

Some of our nicest afternoons have involved very little planning. We go for a walk, stop to look at something unusual or spend time in the garden. Cyrus asks questions, I attempt to answer them and occasionally we both learn something.

Books such as Lark The Shark and Dave Explores The Great Outdoors fit naturally into these experiences. A story about ocean pollution makes more sense when a child has visited the beach and seen rubbish washed up along the shore. Reading about minibeasts is more interesting when you can go outside and look for them.

I also like that these activities don’t require much money. A garden, local park or patch of grass can provide plenty to investigate. Children don’t necessarily need a carefully organised nature activity with laminated instructions and a matching craft kit. Sometimes they just need permission to get dirty.

Of course, we still have screens in our house. Cyrus enjoys his Nintendo, and I have no intention of pretending otherwise. Technology is part of childhood now, and there are plenty of interesting things children can learn from it.

But I don’t want him to lose the pleasure of being outdoors, particularly when he is still young enough to find a beetle genuinely exciting.

Small things we can do at home

One thing I have learned about parenting is that children are more likely to develop good habits when those habits are part of everyday life.

We can explain recycling a hundred times, but it probably makes more sense when children help sort the rubbish themselves. The same applies to saving water, looking after plants or remembering to take litter home after a picnic. There are plenty of small things families can do without spending a fortune or completely changing the way they live.

We can grow herbs on a windowsill, plant flowers that attract pollinators or leave a quiet corner of the garden for wildlife. We can reuse cardboard boxes for craft projects, donate toys that are no longer wanted and borrow books from the library.

At the beach, children can help collect safe pieces of litter, provided an adult checks what they are picking up. In the garden, they can watch insects without disturbing them or learn why fallen leaves provide shelter for small creatures. And, of course, we can read.

I sometimes think we underestimate how much children absorb from stories. They remember characters, repeat favourite phrases and ask questions long after a book has been put away. That doesn’t mean every bedtime story needs an educational purpose. There is nothing wrong with reading something simply because it is funny or because your child likes the pictures.

But when a book manages to entertain children while introducing them to something worth thinking about, I consider that a bonus.

A shark, a worm and a different way of looking at the world

I doubt Natalie Newman or Nicky Gould expects their books to solve the world’s environmental problems. That would be quite a responsibility to place on a friendly shark and a collection of garden insects. What both authors have done is make the natural world interesting to younger children.

Lark The Shark gives children a reason to care about what happens beneath the sea, while Dave Explores The Great Outdoors encourages them to pay attention to the creatures living much closer to home. They are different books, but I enjoyed reading both with Cyrus because they led to conversations we might not otherwise have had.

I am also beginning to appreciate that his fascination with worms and insects isn’t something I should hurry him out of. Childhood is full of these small discoveries, and there will come a time when he probably won’t want me standing beside him in the garden discussing the private lives of beetles.

For now, I am happy to indulge him.

Where to buy the books

What has your child discovered outdoors?

Does your child love exploring the garden, or are they more interested in what lives beneath the sea? Have you found any children’s books that have encouraged them to take an interest in nature?

I’d love to hear your recommendations. Leave a comment below or find me on Instagram @ofsaffronandcyrus.

Occasional stories, experiments, discoveries and questions from Saffron & Cyrus.