Gaia Girls - Enter the Earth

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Seeking a good series of books for young girls that feature strong, compassionate, and eco savvy role models? In this day of Bratz, Barbie, Teen Beat, and text messages this might seem like a tall order but the Gaia Girls series delivers. These award winning books are aimed at tween girls and I love the strong and ethical characters. I was so impressed by the series I will keep up with reading them myself and save them for my daughter.

What I loved the most was that these characters are not products of our consumerist society. These girls aren’t obsessed with boys and the latest boy band, text messaging each other, or wearing make-up to school. The four girls featured in these books have a greater calling in life…to use the powers given to them by Gaia (the whole of the earth) to save and protect their local communities and the world at large from ecological devastation.

In book one, Enter the Earth, we meet the first Gaia Girl, 10 year old Elizabeth. She lives on a small organic farm, raising seedling trees, growing organic veggies, and shearing sheep for wool. Her family has leveraged the growing demand for organic products and heirloom food items to make a succsessful farm and farmer’s market business for themselves. Elizabeth is involved in the daily management of her farm home even contributing her own service, fresh cut wildflowers, to the Farmer’s Market every week. She spends her days working, adventuring with her dog, climbing trees, and listening to the sounds of nature.

All of this is threatened when Harmony Farms, a factory farm operation starts buying up all the land in their valley. Not only will a factory farm be devastating ecologically to their community it will surely ruin her family’s business as their river gets polluted and the air unbearable with the stench of thousands of pounds of pig excrement. Elizabeth feels she must do something but what????!?

Enter Gaia or Mother Earth. She bestows upon Elizabeth power over rock, soil, and mountaintop allowing her to control the soil and move through trees. She can communicate with the trees even. Gaia tells her that humans have become like a cancer to her and she must seek the help of four special girls before she herself starts to die or is forced to make conditions very bad for humans so they won’t be able to survive. Elizabeth has the power of Earth but soon we will meet the other 3 Gaia girls who control water, fire, and air. Together these tweens will do what so many others can’t be bothered to do…save our planet and preserve it for future generations.

All I can say is WOW. I LOVED these books….what I have read so far anyway. I am a big sci-fi fan and there aren’t a lot of superhuman heroines out there…let alone young ones. I think it is high time that young girls have a series of books that uses the power of imagination to spin a beautiful story about strong, intelligent girls who really care about their communities, nature, and the world around them.

Oh and another fun thing about the books. There are hidden codes inside the pictures that lead each chapter. Even the cover has some secrets if you look close enough at the tree and roots on it. Young girls are going to love this series…maybe some older ones too.

Next up Gaia Girls  - Way of Water to meet Miho.