MISSION: PLANET EARTH

The authors of the classic Third Planet (1994) narrow their focus to examine the Earth’s oxygen and carbon cycles, and how human monkeying with them has created troubling signs of a destabilized climate. The narrative’s tone is less alarmist than most recent looks at global warming, but still threaded with lively language—“As the mouse digests the leaf, our carbon atom is yanked off the sugar molecule and two oxygen atoms are plunked on it”—and well stocked with both recent scientific findings and big, clear color photos. Photo captions nicely provide additional information that expands on the argument provided by the primary text: Beneath a close-up of a very photogenic pika, the caption reads, “if the temperature rises above 31°C…even for an hour they will die.” The topic is getting plenty of attention elsewhere, but this cogently argued, handsomely packaged companion to the easier and more activity-oriented Mission: Save the Planet (2009) will leave readers understanding just why it would be a good idea to be concerned. (index, resource list) (Nonfiction. 11-13)