Nurturing young minds with sustainable storytelling

Senior Product Manager

Maxine Spence

“We have decades of experience creating levelled readers that build reading confidence. With Green Sparks, we wanted to harness that expertise to address one of the biggest themes in education today: sustainability.“

As educators and publishers, we know that children start making sense of the world around them long before they can fully articulate how they feel about it. Many children today experience anxiety around issues like climate change and the state of the world. It became increasingly clear to me that we needed a new kind of resource: one that would inform, empower, and inspire children, rather than overwhelm them. 

This need led to the creation of Green Sparks, our new Oxford Reading Tree strand for international schools, designed for readers aged four to seven. Our goal was simple, but ambitious: to introduce sustainability to young readers through engaging storytelling, rich non-fiction, and age‑appropriate concepts. What makes this series unique is the alignment of its 42 carefully levelled books with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). All the books are dedicated to helping children understand and care about their world.

At OUP, we have decades of experience creating levelled readers that build reading confidence. With Green Sparks, we wanted to harness that expertise to address one of the biggest themes in education today: sustainability.

The series is underpinned by our Oxford Reading Levels system, which incrementally increases the level of challenge and allows children to experience reading success by accessing a text at the right level for them. The Green Sparks series is primarily phonically decodable, because research shows that systematic synthetic phonics is the most effective way of teaching young learners to read.  We also introduced  some topic words earlier than we would usually, where they were essential for understanding; sustainability terms like “waste” and “flood” were carefully selected to ensure that children comprehend core concepts. 

Before we started this project, there was a lack of resources that introduced the UN SDGs in a way young learners can understand and engage with. There were no levelled readers supporting this topic and certainly none that integrated phonics, global citizenship, and environmental education. Green Sparks fills that gap. Although it complements the Oxford International Curriculum for Sustainability, we designed it to be adaptable. Schools anywhere in the world, following any curriculum, can use it for reading practice, inquiry‑led learning, or cross‑curricular projects. 

A question I’m often asked is how we translate complex global goals into something meaningful for young learners. Fiction plays a particularly important role in this series. Stories help children explore challenges and emotions at a safe distance: a journey through a forest can spark conversations about habitats. Fiction lets readers step into someone else’s experience with empathy and imagination. At the same time, we knew non‑fiction was essential, not only for knowledge building, but because many young readers are naturally drawn to facts, diagrams, and real‑world imagery. The interplay between narrative and information is one of the series’ greatest strengths. 

In addition to the clear progression and levelling for every book, we provide supportive teacher materials, such as guided activities, prompts, and cross‑curricular suggestions to help adults scaffold understanding. Whether a child is reading independently or exploring a text with a teacher, the structure ensures that concepts are introduced gently but purposefully. 

We were also determined to reflect the global nature of sustainability. The authors contributing to Green Sparks come from a wide range of countries and cultural backgrounds, helping us present an authentically international viewpoint. Some books focus on local, everyday experiences while others explore larger global issues, from protecting coral reefs to supporting communities after an earthquake. This balance helps children understand both the worldwide scale of sustainability and the role they can play in their own communities. 

When children understand their world, they care about it. My hope is that Green Sparks not only builds reading fluency but nurtures a generation of young global citizens who feel empowered rather than overwhelmed by the challenges ahead.