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ALL THE FEELINGS UNDER THE SUN by Leslie Davenport

ALL THE FEELINGS UNDER THE SUN

How To Deal With Climate Change

by Leslie Davenport ; illustrated by Jessica Smith

Pub Date: Sept. 28th, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4338-3391-5
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association

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)