Review: It’s Easy Being Green by Emma Sleeth
By Patti Gibbons Posted on January 11 2010
You've heard the debates about climate change - where "it's all humanity's fault" or "it's a natural meteorological cycle" are the end points on a continuum in the environmental blame game. Emma Sleeth's debut book doesn't go there at all, instead restating the argument in terms of 'creation care' and practical, rather than emotional, terms. Did I mention yet that she set out to do this as a 15-year-old high school junior?
From a youth minister's perspective, I was instantly engaged by what Emma Sleeth had to say. First, because she spoke so clearly about what role her faith community plays in her life and what she learned there. Second, because her passion for her subject literally poured off the page. Isn't one of our key goals in youth ministry to help the students we serve to find and engage biblical truth with a whole-life perspective?
It's Easy Being Green: One Student's Guide to Saving the Planet, is an offering of Youth Specialties Invert line for students. Fully engaged in her faith, Sleeth felt called to engage others in what she sees as her generations' responsibility to the next. Nurtured in her homegrown passion for the environment by her father, Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth, author of Serve God, Save the Planet, she has written a book that lives up to the it's title task by presenting clear illustrations to make practical points about the biblical mandate to take care of the planet. Addressing environmental stewardship from the perspective of loving one's neighbor, the right use of power, the typical American's consumption of resources in various environments, and more in it's 10 chapters (169 pages, paperback) the book presents a range of practical ways any person, family, school and congregation can become better stewards from within the biblical world view. In addition, there are four appendices of reference resources including bible passages, books, movies, and organizations.
Sleeth's upbeat and conversational tone makes It's Easy Being Green an engaging read which would be an excellent way to introduce the environmental conversation, er, Biblical creation stewardship obligation, to your students and families.
