In the March issue of School Library Journal, Editor in Chief Rebecca Miller writes about an innovative school lunch tray program. In six metropolitan areas across the country, cafeteria trays — those compartmentalized foam plates tossed to the landfill — are being replaced by compostable trays made from a sugarcane byproduct.

What impressed me, besides the program itself, was Miller’s decision to publicize this in her editorial in a school library magazine. It’s all in the cause of educating children, and more adults along the way, in the delicate matter of preserving our home space, the blue and green planet earth.

Two books stand out this month. The first is Laurie Halse Anderson’s latest, The Impossible Knife of Memory, a clear and no-holds-barred look into the long term effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on a family. Although she writes for young adults, we would all do well to read her fictional take on the anger, upset, confusion, and shocking memories that vets carry home with them. Yes, there’s hope.

The other, The Reason I Jump, is a first-hand look at living with autism in a question-answer format. The young Japanese author began communicating at age five in 1997 with an alphabet pad and pointer. His insight and explanations will probably break your heart and concurrently give you new ideas and understanding about what these children go through on a daily basis. Patience and humor make the world go round for the characters in both of these books.