Enter the Earth

Gaia Girls #1

by Lee Welles, Ann Hameister (Illustrator)

Elizabeth Angier was happy to be at the end of the school year. She thought her summer on the family farm would be full of work and play with her best friend, Rachel, and her other best friend, her dog, Maizey. However, Elizabeth didn't anticipate the Harmony Farms Corporation moving to her town. Her world starts to crumble as her best friend moves away and her parents whisper of farmers selling their land and the effects this factory farm operation could have on them. When she thinks things can't get much worse, she meets the most unusual creature, Gaia, the living entity of the Earth. Strange things begin to happen to her, around her, and through her! Elizabeth discovers that with these new powers comes responsibility. A dire mistake makes Elizabeth wonder if meeting Gaia has been a blessing or a curse. Will Elizabeth have the strength to fight a large corporation? Or will her upstate New York home be spoiled by profit driven pork production that fouls the air, land, and water?

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Middle Grade, Childrens, Environment, Nature

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

I am an accidental author. I had no idea I was going to be a writer until about 7 years ago. I began to write a weekly wellness column as a way to promote my business. I was happily surprised by the feedback from the public. They often mentioned how much they enjoyed not only the information, but the way I wrote.

I began to explore the option of freelance writing for magazines and, in the course of my self-directed learning, stumbled upon "The Playful Way to Serious Writing" by Roberta Allen. I discovered that my imagination runs amok given the least provacation!

When I had the idea for Gaia Girls, I told my hubby, a third-grade teacher. He hounded me until I wrote book one. God bless him.

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 4 out of 5]

My niece has this book and she told me I should read it. She thought I would enjoy it. Of course, I was going to read it.

This is for a middle grade reader. It is a fantasy story of a girl who lives on a farm and loves her life there. She meets Gaia, representing the whole earth in otter form, and she is given magical powers having to do with the Earth. This is a story about loving living in harmony with nature. The focus is on a relationship with Nature, which I fully support.

I felt it took a while to get around to doing something. There is character development, but we had to wait for Gaia to show up or for action to take place. The antagonist is a factory farm wants to move in and build a pig warehouse to slaughter 7,000 pigs a day. Our girl, Elizabeth is trying to save her valley from the smells and horror of this kind of farming.

I think there were supposed to be 4 books in the series, but on Goodreads it appears there are only 2, so it wasn't finished. That's too bad. I don't know if I will read on if I can't complete the series. This is a good ending place.

I do think we need to spotlight how horrible these industrial farming practices are. They are not natural and they are abusive. So as many stories like this as we can get are good. I can admit this is a one sided narrative, but I really don't care about exploring the other side of the narrative.

I'm gonna get odd-duck here. I love to read Machaelle Small Wright and her book "Living as if the God in all Life matters" and other books by her. She works very closely with nature and in many ways she is a little like Elizabeth. Her farm is like Findhorn in England and she works with nature to have a healthy garden and land. She has ways of communicating with the wisdom of nature and has asked many questions. Nature doesn't mind machine or other modern farming practices, but it considers one of the most evil actions humans have taken is this way of treating animals. Forcing animals to grow faster with hormones is a true evil it explains. Animals made an agreement to be our companions, but before they are slaughtered for food, they are supposed to have a decent life, not one packed in an stall with 8 other animals so they can't even move.

So, I do think that kind of farming is evil. Give the beasts a field to graze on before they become food on our table. Anyway. We are out of balance, out of harmony with nature and as this summer has shown, nature is now unbalanced and unstable, fires, plagues, floods. We need to evaluate our practices beyond money and find a better way. So, yes, I hope we have more stories like this.

This is a not widely known book and I hope more people can find it and read it. It's good to simply think about what this is saying and the effect it has on the Earth.

I look forward to discussing this with my niece.

[David Bass · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book to my daughter for bedtime stories and she absolutely loved it.

Elizabeth, the protagonist is a strong female character that my daughter could really connect with. Gaia, a personified otter (and, well, Gaia), creates great conflict by pitting Elizabeth between her need to live a quiet life on a small family farm and the Gaia's need for her to step up and fight the large corporate pig farm which is damaging the earth.

Welles, does a nice job creating a magical world based within the Earth. Elizabeth is tied to the Earth, tied to Gaia, tied to her family and is forced to use her newly found powers of the Earth to protect everything dear to her.

The book has a political agenda and that always makes me a little uneasy, but I certainly can empathize with the author's viewpoint and I admire her for making a statement about the the environmental rape that large corporate farms are guilty.

Overall I thought it was a great read, and perfect fit for my 8 year old daughter. I would highly recommend.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic first book in the Gaia Girls series, which will eventually be SEVEN books (though at this rate my daughter will outgrow them before they're all published - boo hoo!)

The story is full of adventure and magic and intrigue, while teaching the reader (both subtly and not-so-subtly) tips for taking care of our precious earth. There is urgency and conflict and disaster and tragedy - difficult subjects are not sugar-coated, but addressed with realism and honesty. This book is PERFECT for kids in the mid-to-higher elementary grades. Also great because the protagonist is a girl who discovers her power (personal AND supernatural) and learns from Gaia, who takes the form of an otter, that one individual CAN make a difference. She also learns about relationships, and how to interact with all kinds of people.

The book has fun learning activities in the back like word puzzles and scavenger hunts. Each illustration in the book has a secret letter hidden in it somewhere, and if you collect all the letters in order they spell out a message.

My daughter and I highly recommend this book!

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing book! It inspires an attitude of respect, understanding, and love for the earth and also educates about things like how an organic farm works, how everything in a garden helps it grow, and how big animal farms are harmful! I love this book! It is definitely not just for kids. I can't wait to read the others in the series.

[Carly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is awesome...I even met the author and she was really cool..very true to saving our worl and i respect that a great deal...Defentily one to read..it's a quick read also .. For ANY ages

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

all the people who care about the enviroment should read this!!

[aarifa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was interesting..... but didn't actually catch my attention..... but I will be reccomending it!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found a pristine copy of this book in a thrift store. kGaia; Mother Earth for youths? Cool! I would have loved to read this when I was younger, and I thought it may be a good story to pass on to my niece. Reading exposed me to so many ideas and fantasies as a child and young adult. I read about thieves, abusers, selfish characters who ruined others' lives for their own gain. I read about the suffering of others and the ways they over came it. I read about beautiful places, moments and works of art that I would never experience firsthand. I feel difficult and fantastic stories made me a more developed person (not to mention, acceptable writer) although I hesitated when choosing this book. Would it be too... new age, soft? Would it make my niece feel like humans are destroyers who don't deserve Earth? This was not the feeling I walked away with after reading this first book in the series. In fact, it seemed a youth companion to a book I have recently read, The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. Elizabeth, a fourth grader who has grown up on a family farm and who loves the earth, the trees, the plants and her dogs, finds herself blessed by Gaia. She finds herself with powers of the Earth, and fervently works to find a way to rid the town of a CAFO (a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) that is trying to ruin the land, pollute the water, and bring about poor living conditions for the animals they "disassemble" and sell for meat. Reading about these facts in The Omnivore's Dilemma, I was brought to the attention of faux organics, faux local, and faux free range. It made me be more aware of where my food comes from. This topic, experienced through a child's eyes, it just seems all the more disheartening. What I appreciate most about Elizabeth, is that she not only has these powers, but has always had within her, an appreciation and awareness of her surroundings. Her family takes pride in what they do. Though it is a profound topic to expose youth to, I find there is enough of the fantasy of speaking with Gaia, speaking with the trees, and being aware of the Earth's songs, to make this a dreamy read, as well. It will open up awareness, at least. And it emphasizes working hard and justly for what you have. I will be passing it on to my niece at Christmas.

[Eric Aiello · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. I gave the book four stars despite one big problem I had with it. I can dismiss the issue since it is a novel directed at children and young adults - admittedly it provides a wonderful set of environmental ethics and has a certain Carson-esque (Rachel Carson - Silent Spring) theme to it. That is, all of nature is a part of a greater system of ecology. You ruin one little part of it, and really the whole thing can go to hell. The analogy of the little toe that Welles creates is clear and concise and will be accessible by children.

My issue, in case your curious (this, I suppose, can be considered a spoiler until you're a little into the book): When Elizabeth shows Will (Buffalo Breath, as she likes to call him) that she can be swallowed by the trees and transported by the Earth, Will doesn't react how I and any other reasonable person would expect him to. He went days... DAYS!... without confronting her about it. Actually, I'm not upset that he didn't confront her. But if I saw someone's young daughter swallowed by a tree you can bet your ass I'm going to be rushing to her house to notify a parent. He didn't go by her house for days! I can suspend my disbelief - I realize this is a fantasy novel, but Will has no fantastical involvement in the world and, therefore, should not consider it a fantasy world where things like Tree-Transport can happen. His reaction, in fewer words, is NOT believable even in the world that Welles creates.

Oh, one more problem, towards the end of the book the word "super-duper" was used. I despise that word. Perhaps it brings me back to the days of Barney the Dinosaur that I've repressed to the deepest abyss of my brain (maybe I'm being too harsh on the big purple bugger)... but really - I don't like that word haha.

Again, overall a great book and I hope that children and young adults with (and without) an interest in nature are given the chance to read this book. I will definitely be passing this on to my little sister!

Lee Welles visited my college last semester (SUNY Oneonta) for a reading and I'm now sorry that I had to miss it.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars --The GAIA GIRLS series is off to a promising start. It's more intelligent and better written than most adventure stories aimed toward the upper elementary/middle school audience, and young readers may learn something to boot.

Elizabeth is a true country girl--growing up on her parents' organic produce farm, she has learned to listen to and respect the earth. Now, the earth is asking for her help. A factory hog operation called "Harmony Farms" is buying up land around their farm, and Elizabeth's family might be forced off their property. Elizabeth's dad describes factory farming thusly:

"What Harmony Farms does is called factory farming and it's horrible for the animals, the people, the water, the air, and especially the soil. Farming has become a business of 'get big or get out.' It doesn't seem to matter to some that factory farms ruin everything a farmer holds dear."

Can Elizabeth save her farm with a little help from a mysterious otter?

The vast majority of animal foods come from factory farms. Even though these places are just as cruel to the environment and workers as they are to animals, Big Ag is working hard to convince rural people that anyone who questions factory farming is "the enemy." Rural voices are so important in putting the skids on Big Ag's rampage through the countryside. I do hope that ENTER THE EARTH, with its down-home values, will appeal to country kids and help them realize what is being done and what they can to to stop it.

There's an aspect at the end of this book that veg*n families will no doubt shake their heads and roll their eyes at (think: "happy meat") however, this book brings up a vitally important issue that is criminally ignored. The children's (and adults'!) novels that feature "eco-friendly" and "animal loving" characters who chow down on cheeseburgers every few pages are too numerous to name. Even if the solution proffered isn't entirely what we would hope for, the fact that the issues are raised and seriously discussed are a big step in the right direction.

[Jo ☾ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to fall in love with this book and I was honestly expecting to so I'm sad that I didn't really enjoy it. This is a book geared towards older children that features a young girl working together with the earth in order to stop a factory farm (more specifically a pig farm) from buying up all the neighbour farms and being built next door to their own farm. It sounded amazing and wonderful and I love that such a book exists for the younger crowd, but.... I didn't particularly like it myself. This is obviously a much loved and highly rated series but I found the plot incredibly slow and it just didn't capture my attention. I also really did not like the main character, Elizabeth. I believe she's supposed to be around nine years old, just finishing the 4th grade but she comes across much younger. That, combined with the slow start just made this rather a chore to finish.

Gaia appears to Elizabeth in the form of an otter and Elizabeth learns that she's special. She has earth powers and is able to travel from tree to tree, to hear and speak to the trees and can manipulate rocks and soil with the help of the insects underground. Gaia needs help because the earth is not doing well and the book touches on global warming without actually using the words global warming.

Basically, Elizabeth ends up using her earth powers in an effort to thwart the plans of the pig farm developers.

As the series goes on we'll meet other girls with different powers and they'll eventually all come together to save Gaia. I really have no desire to continue on with the rest of the books though. :(

[Jacqueline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enter the Earth is the story of Elizabeth Angier, a 9 year old girl living on a farm in Upstate New York. When her family farm is threatened by a CAFO (factory farm), Elizabeth encounters Gaia, in the form of an otter, and is given unique powers that she can use to help save both her farm and Gaia herself.

This was a fast moving story, and I enjoyed it as an adult. I did have some problems with it though. It was written in the stilted manner of books aimed at 8-10 year olds, but the language and amount of unnecessary detail seemed intended for an older audience. I have trouble seeing 8-10 year olds choosing to wade through the junk to get to the heart of the story, and yet, I think anyone older would be likely to be turned off by the stilted writing. (I was.)

Also the theme of the book seems to be that it is OK to use violence and force to solve problems. I don't think it is necessary or even fun to read books that only have themes that you agree with, but considering that this series of books is promoted as a way of encouraging youngsters to "care for the earth", I do feel that it is saying that the methods presented in the book are good methods.

There is a section at the end of the book titled "Author's Thoughts" in which the author states that she does not think that the use of force either through personal violence or destruction of private property are good ways to deal with problems, but this section is separate from the book and definitely directed at adults so I don't think it would have any affect on most children reading this story.

[Cindy Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth is excited that fourth grade is almost over and she’ll soon be able to hang out for lazy days on her farm with her best friend Rachel. She knows there will also be lots of work to do, but she loves her family’s land and the way her parents care for it. She’s always felt a close connection to the things that grow there.

But Elizabeth’s idyllic summer is not to be, as she discovers Rachel is moving away and a large corporation that runs giant pig farms is buying up nearby land to turn into a factory farm. Her parents refuse to sell, but will they be able to stand living next to the new operation, which will change their own quality of life in many ways?

Even though Elizabeth’s parents fight against the plan, it seems as though they are doomed to lose. But then Elizabeth meets an otter who can talk, and otter who calls herself Gaia. Gaia says she is the living Earth, and she says Elizabeth herself can do something to help save the land she dearly loves.

Gaia Girls, Enter the Earth by Lee Welles, illustrated by Ann Hameister, is the first in a series that focuses on children using special powers to help save what they love. It shows that saving our environment can be very personal, not just a term that’s thrown about. It’s personal when we can equate a small piece of land that we love, and the reasons we love it, as something worth saving. Gaia Girls, Enter the Earth should be good for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 9 to 12 who have in interest in learning more about the environment.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a supporter of the local food movement or sustainable agriculture and opposed to industrially raised food than you will probably like this book and suggest it to your preteen daughter. If you think that whole line of thinking is a bunch of bunk than you will not likely enjoy the book. The premise of the book involves the consciousness of the earth presenting herself to a girl and gives the girl powers to help save the earth from destructive environmental practices. The girl uses these powers to sabotage a company's efforts to build a confined animal feeding operation next to her family farm by moving earth with her mind to fill in foundations and tip over large machinery. Although I sympathize with the author's desire to promote the purchase of locally grown food, I thought the eco-terrorism vibe was a little much but it made for an interesting story. Otherwise, the characters are well formed and interesting. The writing is pretty solid and the plot is well paced and appropriate for the 8-12 age group. I also enjoyed the hidden pictures and letter clues hidden in the illustrations.

I enjoyed the characters and the storyline. If my daughter were to read it I would want to talk with her more about the ordinary ways we work to reduce our impact on the earth through daily choices and talking with our friends and neighbors.

Content Notes: No objectionable language or sexual content.

[Kelly Holmes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had such high hopes for this because of the premise: A girl lives on a family farm and a factory farming corporation moves in and starts buying nearby farms. But I did not enjoy the writing at all.

The plot seemed to move very slowly. One reason for that might be that at the beginning, there were a lot of "backstory breaks" -- paragraphs of flashback or explanation -- that interrupted the flow. I was always being told how the character felt after everything that happened, rather than her reacting and letting me figure out as a reader what that meant about how she felt. And it seemed like just about every time an adult spoke, it was a not-so-veiled attempt to preach the virtues of family farming. Don't get me wrong -- I'm completely in favor of supporting local family farming. But I don't want to read a children's book where all the adults are constantly preaching about something.

Overall, I felt the book could have been at least 100 pages shorter. There were a lot of details and even a few scenes included that didn't add anything to the plot or characterization or setting.

[Maurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not recommend this book more. I'd love to see it be required reading for forth graders everywhere and even better if families read it together. But it's not just for kids. The message in this book is important for adults to hear as well. My personal view of Gaia is a little different than that portrayed in the book but my feelings on the importance of caring for the earth through considering all our actions, from what we eat to what we buy and how we live is in full agreement with this book. Willingness to learn is the first step to transforming the way we live our lives. This book can help with that transformation in a fun and enjoyable way.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought book #2 first - because of the cover..backed up and found book #1...for young readers (and old) the beginning of a series of environmentally focused super-kids. The Earth book takes you to a farm in upstate NY and the evils of Corporate farming. Lizzy has the power to hear the land/trees/dirt/ and learns to harness her power for good with the help of neighbor boy Will. It was an excellent way to deliver environmental choices to kids without being preachy or overbearing. Coming from a place of love for the land and her farm the story is well told and made me excited to read on to the next Gaia Girls book....

[Charity · Rating 3 out of 5]

When her family's farm is threatened by a corporate farming operation, Elizabeth discovers that she's uniquely suited to save the day.

I wasn't thrilled with this one at first, but it grew on me. There's some action just past the midway point that I found particularly well written. It has a similar feel and themes as The Overstory by Richard Powers but for a middle-grade audience, and would be great as part of a family reading crate (like Emily Cook at Build Your Library used to offer).

Having said this, I should also mention that my own children haven't been particularly interested in reading this one, and I'm not sure I enjoyed it enough to pick up any other books in the series.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an inspiring book! Negative reviewers have bashed it for preachily espousing an earth-reverent lifestyle of environmental conservation. The heroine fights the establishment of a factory farming pig enterprise in her neighborhood and I guess some take offense to that entire premise. As a pagan mom, that moral interweaved with the tale is what makes it so valuable.

It is an empowering story of a girl who, by paying attention to and loving the natural world around her, has the power to help save it.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is written by a local author, which was enough of a stimulus for me to give it a try. It's basically an earth-friendly girl-power story, and while it gets a little preach at times (even on subjects outside of the environment, like advertising), it was good enough to make me get book 2 out of the library.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this story to my daughter as of bedtime story. She she really enjoyed it and thought it was extremely well-written. She is very into the environment and so enjoyed it because Elizabeth, the main character, lives on a farm and is very tuned in to her surroundings.

[Jessica Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing story about a little girl on a farm who wants to savre the earth with her new friend Gaia. The earth took the body of an otter! Still waiting for book 3!

[Jenifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delightful book! I'm looking forward to the next one.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read many years ago. I am now reading with my daughter. I love the super earth saving powers young girl characters have in these books.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my faveorite series'!!!

[Cortny Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gaia Girls: Enter The Earth is a tale of a ten year old girl named Elizabeth who has to fight against a huge cooperation to save her families farm with an interesting entity called Gaia. With the help of Gaia, Elizabeth discovers she has unique abilities, such as listening and moving Earth.

Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth as won National Outdoor Book Award (2006), iParenting Media Award (2007), Independent Publishers Award.

Use the GA standard ELAGSE4RL3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama,
drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions).

Have your students read Gaia Girls: Enter the Earth on their own. Have them pick a character other than the main character to do a project on. The project will be a paper describing the character and how the actions in the story effected them ( Rachel having to move, etc). If they do not want to do a paper, you can have them use a poster board and draw or craft the character they have chosen and use word bubbles to describe how the character felt throughout the story. Students can do both if they wish.

[Jane Cookman Metzger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love that this kind of story dealing with environmental stewardship and harmful agricultural practices is available to kids. We need more books like this. While some folks may be skeptical with the way the Earth is presented as a living being in this book,as a deep ecologist and believer in the Gaia Hypothesis I'm on board. No matter what you believe, I think it's important to consider that humans may not be the "top" of the food chain/ecosystem, just a dominant part of it, and can put our intellectual capability toward making better choices that are less harmful to the world around us.

I also like that the heroine of the book is a child and a girl. Kids of both genders need to see that they can make an impact for whatever issue may resonate with them.

[Gaia4173 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. It reminds me of my own childhood growing up rurally loving nature. Climbing trees, swimming till I could see rainbows in my blurry eyes, collecting rocks, kissing frogs, picking wild blackberries along the buggy corn fields on a muggy July morning - all these memories and so many more came flooding back to me as I read Enter the Earth. I found tears of nostalgia running down my cheeks, and I felt a joy and peace that someone could put all this and more into a novel for children that combined imagination, empowerment, and environmental issues.

The Gaia Girls series are to me what Harry Potter is to the rest of the world.

[Bagel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only made it a chapter into this so maybe I shouldn't even give it any stars but I'll at least explain why I stopped reading so quickly.

It's preachy and insulting to the intelligence of all 9 and up years olds out there. The dialogue and thought processes of the main character seem to scream " I'm what adults want to think 9 years are thinking!" -- I should have known, though, the synopsis on the back uses the phrase "factory farming." Gah.

[Faylove · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish this book would have been written 15 years ago! Even though it is aimed towards a young audience, it was highly entertaining and such a positive message! A message that is highly needed now more then ever... I cant wait for the rest of the series to be written!
I will pass this book on to everyone I know!