Argues persuasively that it’s not going to be a pretty future—or much of a future at all—without drastic action soon.
A caustic indictment of this country’s foot-dragging response to the threat of climate disaster, paired with a rising international chorus of younger voices raised in protest.
In the author’s view it’s no longer an impending threat: “Unfortunately, long-term disaster is now the best-case scenario.” In language as acerbic as the famously take-no-prisoners activist Greta Thunberg’s, Rhuday-Perkovich draws from Nathaniel Rich’s terrifying Losing Earth (2019) to point out evidence that scientists have been telling us what was in the atmospheric cards since the mid-1850s. She also traces the political failures—orchestrated in large part, she claims, by the petroleum industry’s lobbying organization, “ironically called the Global Climate Coalition”—that culminated in the disastrous policy reversals of the Trump administration. Readers will be jolted out of any sense of complacency through the inclusion of success stories like New York’s student-led Styrofoam Out of Schools initiative, quotes from Thunberg and dozens of other activists from numerous countries and cultures, descriptions of ways of coping with climate change anxiety, and too rarely made observations about how environmental issues are inextricably linked to issues of race, class, and gender. Foley, illustrator of the Epic Fails series, adds further sauce in caricature portraits ranging from President Donald Trump with fingers in his ears to climate heroes in spandex. Rich supplies an introduction.
Argues persuasively that it’s not going to be a pretty future—or much of a future at all—without drastic action soon. (endnotes, resources, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-31305-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Considerably more edgy satire than Happily Ever After here; a bracing take for teens.
From Puss in Boots’ swaggering descendant “Puss-in-Trainers” to the titular break-and-enter artist caught on security cameras, Agard lays urban-inflected modern twists on 29 folkloric characters.
Written in rhyme or free verse with hip-hop cadences, the poems are nearly all in first person and range in tone from funny or acid (“Bring on your shining armour, dude. / I’ll be your damsel in distress with attitude”), to dark, even threatening. Many offer fresh approaches to the familiar, such as quick portraits of Cinderella in biker leathers and Iron Jack as an emotionally vulnerable Gulf War vet. An apple and a magic mirror provide unusual points of view about their assigned roles, as do “Two Ugly Sisters” who defiantly declare that they “won’t be face-down in no make-up kit / We give the thumbs-up to hair in the armpit,” but end with a sobering “Never mind the eye, we enchant the ear / From our ugly mouths come song, come prayer.” The poems are printed in a variety of typefaces, and Kitamura’s heavily inked black-and-white cartoons or silhouettes likewise change looks while adding appropriately dark, angular, energetic visual notes.
Considerably more edgy satire than Happily Ever After here; a bracing take for teens. (Poetry. 12-16)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84780-183-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An important story that feels like it breathes a dose of virtuous oxygen right into readers' heads. (Nonfiction. 12-16)
The story of a doctor’s quest to heal the sick in a poor Haitian community and beyond.
Dr. Paul Farmer is one of those characters the world could use a few more of, which is why it is great to have this book to put in as many young hands as possible. He saw something his conscience simply could not abide—the medical neglect of poor people—and then went and did something about it, setting up a clinic to serve the medical needs of an impoverished Haitian neighborhood. But he is everywhere else as well, from Peru to Russia, a powerhouse for medical good. He has a wonderful way of screwing down on some of the worst behaviors of humanity—how we habituate ourselves to the misery of others, the absurd self-regard of the medical profession—while (mostly) not coming across as churlish or self-righteous. French has done a fine job of adapting Kidder's book for young readers, almost invisibly tinkering with the original storytelling while not dodging any of Farmer’s obsessive characteristics or forceful arguments. The power of the story, of the need to just get things done since there are always resources to tap if the cause is just, pours forth as Kidder intended.
An important story that feels like it breathes a dose of virtuous oxygen right into readers' heads. (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-74318-1
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
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