A powerful depiction of the impact of climate change on a young activist’s mental health.
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
PERSPECTIVES
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
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
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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