by Leslie Davenport ; illustrated by Jessica Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 28, 2021
An interesting and unusual approach to eco-awareness for tweens and teens.
Learning about climate change can arouse all kinds of feelings, but there are ways to cope with them and to use them productively.
A therapist experienced in the field of climate psychology offers tween and teen readers a combination of climate change facts and coping tools. She provides solid information about what we now know about climate change, its causes and consequences, and how we’ve learned that, interspersing her explanations with self-help suggestions. She encourages readers to identify their own values, think about how these values can help them face the challenges of a changing world, and develop their own climate action plan. Each of the five chapters includes one or more examples of a teen or teen group that has been active in a variety of climate issues. Each includes numerous exercises designed to help kids recognize their feelings and “build emotional resilience”; these include rating the strengths of their feelings, creating snow globe–like “mindfulness jars,” and civic engagement. Concepts like eco-grief, systemic racism, negativity bias, and window of tolerance are set in boldface and defined both in context and in a helpful glossary, but there’s no index. The writer’s assumption is that learning about climate change might make her readers feel frightened, sad, nervous, or angry and that climate injustice is unfair. She encourages them to recognize and act on these feelings, but she does not acknowledge that they might encounter people who disagree with them. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An interesting and unusual approach to eco-awareness for tweens and teens. (note for caregivers, directory of climate-aware therapists, acknowledgments, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 11-16)Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4338-3391-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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by Bill Nye & Gregory Mone ; illustrated by Matteo Farinella & Amelia Fenne & Bill Nye ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2020
Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge.
With an amped-up sense of wonder, the Science Guy surveys the natural universe.
Starting from first principles like the scientific method, Nye and his co-author marvel at the “Amazing Machine” that is the human body then go on to talk up animals, plants, evolution, physics and chemistry, the quantum realm, geophysics, and climate change. They next venture out into the solar system and beyond. Along with tallying select aspects and discoveries in each chapter, the authors gather up “Massively Important” central concepts, send shoutouts to underrecognized women scientists like oceanographer Marie Tharp, and slip in directions for homespun experiments and demonstrations. They also challenge readers to ponder still-unsolved scientific posers and intersperse rousing quotes from working scientists about how exciting and wide open their respective fields are. If a few of those fields, like the fungal kingdom, get short shrift (one spare paragraph notwithstanding), readers are urged often enough to go look things up for themselves to kindle a compensatory habit. Aside from posed photos of Nye and a few more of children (mostly presenting as White) doing science-y things, the full-color graphic and photographic images not only reflect the overall “get this!” tone but consistently enrich the flow of facts and reflections. “Our universe is a strange and surprising place,” Nye writes. “Stay curious.” Words to live by.
Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge. (contributors, art credits, selected bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4676-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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by Bill Nye & Gregory Mone illustrated by Nick Iluzada
by Janet Bode & Stan Mack ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001
As in their previous collaborations (Colors of Freedom, Voices of Rape, not reviewed), Bode and Mack portray an issue through the voices of children and adults affected by it. Bode (recently deceased) interviewed preteens, their parents, and adult experts, and organized their responses into parts "For Girls and Boys" and "For Parents." In sections with titles like "Public Recognition" or "What's in Your Heart," her text, addressed directly to the reader, synthesizes many of the responses in a way that should comfort and challenge young and adult readers. At least half of the book is comprised of responses she gathered from her survey, some of which are illustrated in strips by Mack. The result is an engagingly designed book, with questions and topics in bold type so that readers can browse for the recognition they may be looking for. They will need to browse, as there is no index, and young readers will certainly be tempted by the "For Parents" section, and vice versa. A bibliography (with two Spanish titles) and list of Web resources (with mostly live links) will help them seek out more information. They may well have other questions—especially having to do with parents' sexuality—which they don't find answered here, but this is a fine and encouraging place to start. (print and on-line resources) (Non-fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-81945-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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More by Janet Bode
BOOK REVIEW
by Janet Bode
BOOK REVIEW
by Janet Bode & Stan Mack
BOOK REVIEW
by Janet Bode
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