Sheila Says We’re Weird (but we’re just green)

Ruth Ann Smalley is a holistic educator who writes about green living, fair trade, and health for children and adults. A former literature professor, she currently homeschools with her two children in Albany, New York. They live in a kid-friendly neighborhood, where children run in and out of each other s houses and even the dogs have playgroups. Neighbors gather for porch parties, ice cream socials, plant swaps, book club meetings, musical jam sessions, and winter board game nights. One family even hosts an annual August Kid Wash, where children in swimsuits soap up and enjoy being sprayed by adults with garden hoses!

Jennifer Emery has been illustrating for children for over a decade. Her work includes numerous children’s books, including Christmas Gifts, Animal Alphabed, and Moving Day. She also illustrates regularly for the children’s magazine Highlights for Children. Jen grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she still lives in a tiny apartment with her border collie, Butler. The two explore her urban neighborhood four to five times daily, witnessing many of the earth-friendly living ideas practiced by Sheila’s neighbors in this book.

“The only thing weird about this family is how much fun they have what a lovely reminder of how easy some change is!” -Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature, and Earth

“If Sheila can change her thinking, we can too. The ‘new normal’ is fast approaching.” -Mike Mercer, executive director, NW Earth Institute

“Living green may be tough for children whose peers aren’t schooled in eco-responsibility. The protagonists of this colorful book hang their clothes out to dry, eschew air conditioning, compost with worms, and buy food from the local farmers’ market. Their neighbor, Sheila, isn’t impressed. ‘That’s weird,’ she says. The young skeptic is won over in the end, however, making for a book that helps children understand that as the Sheilas of the world learn more about green living, acceptance will grow.” -The Green Life, Sierra Club

“Sheila Says We’re Weird is an illustrated children’s book that teaches sound environmental practices for families while it entertains. Sheila is a neighbor girl who observes many strange ‘green’ practices in her best friend s family. Shopping at the farmer’s market for local foods, composting, using a hand lawn mower, heating with a wood stove instead of a furnace, riding bikes and walking instead of driving, drying laundry on the line instead of the dryer, making sun tea–all of these activities seem weird to Sheila. Yet Sheila seems to enjoy participating in many of these activities with the family very much. Hmmmm, could there be a lesson here? For painless and preach-free environmental education, told especially well with spunky, colorful illustrations, read Sheila Says We’re Weird to children age six and up.” -Midwest Book Review