Monday's green books series: The Adventures of Nick the Ecologist and his Robot O-Zone (and a giveaway!)

Can a story about disappearing trees be both educational and fun? Well, with a robot named O-Zone that is traveling in the galaxy with his friend Nick in a solar powered spacecraft called the Gazoom everything is possible!

Our book for today is:

The Adventures of Nick the Ecologist and his Robot O-Zone: The Mystery of the Missing Trees

Author: Kevin J. Villeneuve

Kevin J. Villeneuve has been writing short stories since the age of 10. His passion for writing short adventure stories led him to the creation of Nick and O-Zone's universe at a very young age. Villeneuve is currently working on the second and third books of the adventure series, where once again, the dynamic duo will fight evil throughout the universe in their ultimate goal to preserve the environment. Villeneuve lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Publisher: iUniverse - Indigo

Published on: October 2007

Reading level: Ages 7-11

What it is about (from Amazon.com):
Nick and his best buddy, O-Zone the Robot, are both junior ecologists learning all about the delicate balance between living things and their environment on Earth. But Nick and O-Zone are also able to explore any galaxy they want through the amazing Gazoom, a solar-powered spaceship invented by Nick’s father.

Nick and O-Zone put their talents to use when they join the Galactic Science Squad, a secret team of astronauts and ecologists working to neutralize interplanetary evil forces. Far across the Universe, trees are suddenly disappearing from Planet Bark at an alarming rate, and Nick and O-Zone have only three days to solve the mystery before all the trees are gone forever. The daring duo must outsmart a group of no-good grown-ups, find the culprits behind the malicious plot, and return safely back to Earth before O-Zone’s power runs out!

Follow the adventurers to the end as they fight an intergalactic battle for the sake of all planets—and the future of children and robots everywhere.

Why you should get it:
1. Somehow I never got connected to adventure stories with robots and other sci-fi characteristics, but O-Zone is a different story. My age is not between 7-11, but I really enjoyed the story and found myself following the adventures of Nick and O-Zone the robot with great interest, not to mention my interest with the subject of the mystery - the disappearance of trees..

2. This book is both educational and entertaining and it's also an adventure with an environmental theme - can you ask for more?

3. The book is filled with great illustrations that complete the text beautifully and helps you for example to envision how a happy robot looks like.

GIVEAWAY ALERT!!!

We are giving away our review copy of the book, and of course a tree will be planted for the copy. It will also come with our sticker (made of recycled paper) saying "One tree planted for this book."

How you can win? please add a comment below with an answer the following question: if you had a robot like O-zone and it could help you with one environmental issue you're having, what would it be? Submissions are accepted until Sunday, March 15, 12PM EST. The winner will be announced the following day.

If you're looking for other interesting green-themed books, you are invited to check out our green books page on our website's green resources section.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

"Green Beginnings" is going green with Eco-Libris

We're happy to announce on a new collaboration with the authors of a very special book: Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home.

We are very excited about our collaboration with the authors, Avrim and Vicki Topel, as this is not only a combination of a personal story and a green guide, but also a local success story that can help many others who are wondering how they can make their homes greener, but also a local green success story - it takes place in Kennett Square, PA, which is close by to our office in Newark, DE.

This book is following the journey Avrim and Vicki had while building a new green sustainable home from scratch, one that will be eventually awarded the USGBC’s LEED Silver and Energy Star Qualified Home designations in October, 2008.

Eco-Libris will be working with the authors to plant a tree for every sold copy of the book. Also, our sticker "One tree planted for this book" (made of recycled paper) will be provided with every purchase of the book.

Here's a more detailed description of the book from its website:

Understanding just what is behind this new, alternative way of living offers along with the remarkable benefits homeowners who live in such dwellings experience and enjoy is the intent of our efforts to spread the word about green living and change the world one reader at a time. When we began our journey into building a green home we were most fortunate that we had the time to learn and the right professionals to teach us about green building. Indeed, there is much to understand to make the most of one's efforts. In hindsight and upon completing our green home, we identified the most important aspects necessary to understand before one begins a green building project.

Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home provides homeowners, architects, contractors, and engineers a common understanding of that which they are about to undertake and empowers everyone involved in a project with a common vision and language to work with. Knowledge is power, and with the shared knowledge in our book, homeowners and professionals alike will become empowered to proceed with their green and sustainable homebuilding projects with confidence and clarity.

One of the most difficult and frustrating roadblocks to understanding the concepts behind successful green homebuilding is the written style and nature of the books and publications written about green homebuilding available in the marketplace today, written in technical jargon that is difficult for the average person to understand.

Green Beginnings: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home is intentionally written in non-technical, plain English and targets persons with no previous construction experience. We've crafted a light, enjoyable read; a story, interspersed with lessons, in a day-by-day, step-by-step journal-like format that identifies the personalities of the participants as importantly as the action steps that result in a completed home. The book explains where and why this alternative approach to building originated, and will enlighten you with how the greater good of mankind is rewarded with each and every green and sustainable home completion occurs.

To illustrate precisely what this new construction method actually looks like, the book contains close to 100 professional photos in sequential order showing the construction process from ground-breaking until completion. And a glossary of green and sustainable construction terms and language is included as a quick reference for those terms that could hinder complete understanding of the text. Doing our best to provide the reader with the most valuable information we could come up with, we added a section of our book entitled "Reflections In Hindsight".

This portion of the book revisits our actual experience, and points out a number of areas in our homebuilding experience that we may have done differently had we had the knowledge and experience before hand. It was important to us to share these items with you, as our goal has always been to empower our readers with the most important understandings of each and every item in the entire process.

The book is not the only way Avrim and Vicki are sharing their story and educating people about green homes. They offer 90-minute educational tours of their home (up to 5 persons by appointment only - you can find more details on this web page. And soon they will also offer also offer a documentary video featuring the professional team that designed and built the house and themselves being interviewed as they tour the completed project in retrospect and discuss and review various components and stages of the project in detail.

We will soon have a review of "Green Beginnings", followed with a giveaway of a copy of the book, so stay tuned. You can read more about the book at www.greenbeginningsconsulting.com

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

All photos of the house are from the photos gallery on the books' website.