A young person learns how to turn eco-anxiety into action.
Seventh grader Haven has climate change anxiety. Symptoms include doomscrolling, nail-biting, nightmares, and difficulty concentrating. Afraid of being seen as overly sensitive and emotional, Haven keeps her fears private. One spring day, she has a panic attack and runs out of science class while watching a video of melting glaciers in Antarctica. Motivated by her anxiety, Haven starts talking about environmental issues with her friends, family, and teachers. When Haven and her classmates begin studying the local Belmont River, they discover the water is acidic. Haven rallies her community to advocate for an investigation into who’s polluting the river. What happened to the frogs? Is Gemba, the new glass factory that recently came to their town, involved in the contamination? Will Haven face her fears and speak out in public against climate change? Her desire to get to the bottom of the story is complicated by the fact that her father, who was unemployed for over two years, now works at Gemba, and the company is infusing money into the community. Dee explores the growing pains of a thoughtful and aware tween navigating everything from large-scale matters to jealousy to crushes. Her timely middle-grade novel is a sound character study with a conventional activism arc. Haven and her family are assumed White; the supporting cast is racially diverse.
A powerful depiction of the impact of climate change on a young activist’s mental health. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8983-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary.
She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia. The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic. An elephant glossary and Castelao’s charming, illustrated guide to elephant body language help immerse readers in Ruby’s world. Goofy, playful, and mischievous Ruby is fully dimensional, as she has shown her bravery during the many hardships of her young life. Applegate deftly tempers themes of grief and loss with compassion and humor as Ruby finds her place in the herd. The author’s note touches on climate change, the illegal ivory trade, and conservation efforts, but the highly emotive framing of the story through the memories of a bewildered baby elephant emphasizes the impact of lines such as “ ‘in Africa,’ I say softly, ‘there were bad people,’ ” without offering readers a nuanced understanding of the broader context that drives poaching.
Certain to steal hearts. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780063080089
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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SEEN & HEARD
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