Green Product Review: Celebrate Green
December 18, 2008 by Jennifer
In continuing with my reviews this week, I thought it would be nice to look at a holiday-minded product. On with the show…
Product: Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family by Corey Colwell-Lipson and Lynn Colwell
Basics: Celebrate Green is a mama-daughter book collaboration – the title is fairly self-explanatory – this is a book about all things related to green holiday celebrations.
Cost: Family friendly at only $17.95. Plus for a limited time, you can score an even better deal. “Right now when you order a copy of Celebrate Green! from our website, you can choose between a box of organic truffles from Sjaaks for one penny plus shipping or a free jar of fair trade whipped shea butter from Vintage Body Spa for nothing but shipping.” That’s a great value. Especially during the holiday season.
What I think:
There are many outward positive aspects of this book. For example, it’s printed on 100% recycled FSC certified paper, which more books should be. There’s also a highly interactive website going on for this book. Plenty of green tips, author info, and fun stuff is offered, along with a value on reader participation.
Pros:
I like how the book is set up: The table of contents is divided into seasons, and then sub-holidays under each season. Spring through winter holidays are offered and a cool section with year round holidays -such as birthdays, family reunions, and baby showers. The last section is very nice with a great big list of helpful green websites (three pages worth) and a green-smart glossary. There are also blank page sections in the back of the book where you can make notes about each season. This book is super easy to skim through and find what you need, and their index pages are actually very well done (I’m sick of poor indexes).
I like the design: The design is simple but easy to follow. The colors flow through the book in soothing sage and browns. Important information is either in a solid color block, or has a great big header; both of which really break up the text in a bite size way. Also, each holiday is clearly marked in the bottom page corner – which is nice, so if you’re flipping through spring, you’ll see where Easter topics end and Earth Day begins.
The holidays are covered well: It would be impossible to go through how they discuss each holiday, but trust me, plenty of green tips are covered for each holiday. I’m going to use Cinco de Mayo and 4th of July as examples.
In the Cinco de Mayo chapter some of the various items covered include:
- Eco issue facing Mexico in general, and how you can help.
- Organic veggie enchilada recipe.
- Paper bag pinata instructions.
- And more.
In the 4th of July chapter some of the various items covered include:
- The dish on if fireworks are green and air quality and child labor issues related.
- Alternatives to fireworks and how to safely manage them.
- Recycling bin contest idea.
- Three worthy summer eco-causes you can support.
- How to organic up your picnic.
- Choosing eco-friendly summer drinks including where to score eco-beer.
- News about tap water.
- Organic Red, White, and Blueberry muffin recipe.
- Fun family activities that don’t kill the earth.
- And more.
So, as you can see, each holiday not only focuses on the green aspects of the holiday, but also on other green issue important to the season – that is pretty cool.
Cons:
I couldn’t really find many cons about this book. My only issue is that the text is a little wordy. (Like I’m one to talk though). The intro was really long, a little too long for my taste, and there’s a back story behind almost everything in this book, and in some cases I felt they could have just offered the tip and moved on. On the other hand, some people like that kind of thing, and as noted, I’m not exactly the most succinct human ever, so… take this with a grain of salt. It is what it is.
Celebrate Green final score:
Five out of five happy trees. This is one of the most in depth green holiday resources I’ve seen. It’s also perfect for families. Very well balanced with both kid and adult friendly aspects. It’s not just for one member of the family. Also, right now, with the special deal going on, this is an extra great value for a green book. It would make a great holiday gift.
This sounds like a really cool book, I think I may have to check it out.
You should – it’s so year-round user friendly that it’s just a great all-around green resource. I’d put it in my top ten best green family books. Hey, maybe I should do a post about that. Hmmm.