Welcome back to Book Break! We are coming up to the new year, and I think everyone will join me
in breathing a collective "thank god". But if we want 2021 to be any better, there are a lot of
things we need to change, and just one of those things that we can all come together to do is
to look after our Earth a little better. So I've got a stack of books here that will help inspire
your New Year's resolutions. We are so bored of New Year's resolutions that are about changing
ourselves or our bodies, so you will find none of that here. These books will inspire you to come up
with New Year's resolutions for the greater good. Inspired by the book Eat to Save the Planet by
Annie Bell, your new year's resolution could be about food, but nothing to do with fitting into
a different clothes size in 2021. This is about literally eating to save the planet! So this
book is packed with simple eco-friendly recipes which were all created following the guidelines
of the Planetary Health Diet, which was created by a group of scientists. And its flexitarian,
so you'll find lots of vegan and veggie recipes in here, but there are also recipes with small
amounts of seafood, poultry, or even red meat. So it's really accessible and realistic for anyone
to do, and the recipes also sound absolutely delicious. I'm pretty sure that when you're eating
aubergine stuffed with lamb and buckwheat, or cauliflower lentil and watercress risotto,
it won't feel like a new year's resolution. If you do want to go full vegan, which is obviously
a great choice environmentally speaking, there are loads of vegan cookbooks to choose from, like for
example Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry who is an award-winning chef and food activist. The
recipes in here are great for the environment, both because they're plant-based, and because
Bryant Terry takes a really low waste approach to cooking. And the dishes are reimaginings of
dishes from African and Caribbean countries, and a lot of Terry's own favourite childhood meals as
well. And if you do want more vegan inspiration I will link below to two videos we've previously
made, to give you some more ideas. But moving away from food, your resolution could be about making
little eco-friendly changes around the house. So this was inspired by the book Clean & Green by
Nancy Birtwhistle. So this book is full of hints and tips that show you how easy and affordable
it can be to make little swaps in your cleaning routine that are great for the environment. So
you've got everyday cleaning and laundry tips, instructions for how to make a zero effort oven
cleaner, tips for removing stains from clothing and furniture, and they're all really economical
ideas that will help you easily reduce your use of disposable plastic products. And for more advice
on swapping out plastic, McFly's own Dougie Poynter wrote a children's book called Plastic
Sucks which has loads of tips for how to reduce your use of plastic. I used this book to actually
try going through a whole plastic free day, so I will link to that video below so you can see how I
did. Pretty well I think! And while we're talking about children's books, your new year's resolution
might be to help inspire a new generation of eco warriors. So you might try buying books like these
for the little ones in your life. This is Busy Recycle and Busy Grow. This is a really cute set
of interactive children's books that encourage them to get involved in growing things in the
garden or get involved in recycling. Emily Gravett also has some great children's books, Tidy and Too
Much Stuff are both on environmental themes, and they're absolutely beautiful. And then one to look
out for coming in 2021 is a book called Love Our Earth by Jane Cabrera. That one's going to be a
really colourful engaging book with loads to count on every page, and little tips for young children
on looking after the planet. Or your new year's resolution might be to keep educating yourself.
Maybe try listening to some new perspectives on environmental activism that you hadn't thought
about before, with books like Green Deen: what Islam teaches about protecting the planet.
That book talks all about the connections between the teachings of Islam with environmentalism, so
that's a really interesting perspective. There's Something in the Water by Ingrid Waldron looks at
environmental racism, so it takes Nova Scotia as a case study and looks at the health impacts on
Black and indigenous communities of environmental injustice. Or there's the book Staying Alive by
Vandana Shiva which links the violation of nature with the violation and marginalisation of women,
and shows how neither the destruction of our earth or the marginalisation of women aren't inevitable,
either economically or scientifically. But making a resolution to read more books about
the environment doesn't mean you have to suddenly pivot to reading loads of non-fiction if that's
not usually your thing. If it is I will link below, because we do have another video with
loads of suggestions for you, but right now I'm going to talk about some fiction books.
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin is a really popular dystopian sci-fi, which imagines what catastrophic
climate change could look like. And this one has been absolutely raved about. Eat Dirt by
Goldy Moldovsky is about a teenager called Gregor who signs up to camp Save the World,
which is a special summer program for young activists. And there's going to be a prize
awarded at the end of the summer to the activist who shows the most promise in their campaign,
but this just turns the whole camp experience into outright warfare, with everyone trying to
sabotage each other's campaigns. Or another one to look out for coming in 2021 is Beauty
and the Bin by Joanne O'Connell which is about a school competition for young entrepreneurs,
and a young girl called Laurie who enters her homemade beauty products which are all designed
to be better for the environment. So that's a really cute story about friends, family and
being an eco warrior. Then if you need any help actually implementing any of these resolutions,
I recommend Good Habits Bad Habits by Wendy Wood, which is all about the science of how to make
positive changes that actually stick. So if you think that so many of the things we do every
day are habit, it doesn't make sense that when we want to change things we just rely on sheer
force of will. So this book looks at the science of how habits are formed and how to make positive
changes in your life for good. And if you need one final boost, just listen to one of our most
inspirational environmental activists David Attenborough, and read his book A Life on Our
Planet. David Attenborough has dedicated his life to learning about our planet, and he says that we
now have one final chance to restore the wonderful world that we inherited. So if anyone can make you
fall in love with our planet all over again, and give you that boost to go and make these changes,
it's David Attenborough. So all the videos I've mentioned will be linked in the description box
below, I will also link here to another new year's resolutions video we made last year, all about
reading resolutions, if you want some slightly different ideas. But do leave any comments
below suggesting your favourite environmental books. And we'll see you next time in 2021!