Earth Day arrives with urgent messages of distress from our planet — and who better to help us hear them and inspire awe and action than our most celebrated ecologists, novelists, botanists, arborists, travelers, poets and storytellers?

For this important day, here are kids' and adult books that keenly observe and speak eloquently for and about Nature. We bring indigenous and marginalized voices to the center in the call for climate justice, gather writings that journey across environments and around the world — and offer toolkits for activism and sustainable living.