The Garden Next Door
Oakland author Collin Pine highlights the importance of pollinator gardens in a tale about a diverse trio of children who investigate why birds, bees and butterflies bypass their yard for their neighbor’s. An avid gardener with a pet banana slug, Pine shows how small changes can make a big impact on the animals and insects around us. River Horse Books, 2022. $18.99. riverhorsebooks.com.
National Parks A-Z: Adventure from Acadia to Zion!
This alphabet book takes kids on a trip to 26 national parks, learning about these natural treasures, their animal inhabitants, the people who work there and more. To research the book, San Francisco author and illustrator Gus D’Angelo hiked, camped, canoed and snowshoed across the parks, talking to rangers, tribal nation members, activists and scientists. Mountaineers Books, 2022. $18.95. mountaineersbooks.org.

Sunrise Dance and Moonlight Prance
This duo of sturdy books has pull tabs for little hands to explore the morning and evening routines of playful animals in rollicking rhyme, perfect to read aloud. Illustrated by Teagan White, the books were written by Serena Gingold Allen of El Cerrito, who was inspired by her son’s unquenchable energy and the wildlife she encountered growing up outside Yosemite. Chronicle Books, 2022. $12.99. chroniclebooks.com.

Octopuses Have Zero Bones
This unique counting book explores the numbers zero to nine, as well as the powers of 10, to 9 billion. Author Anne Richardson, senior director of global collaborations at the Exploratorium, uses scientific and mathematical concepts and questions – How many moons does Mars have? How many leaves on an oak tree? How many breaths do you take in a day? – to delve into the role of numbers in the world around us. Tra Publishing, 2022. $19.99. trapublishing.com.