CLIMATE CHANGE, THE CHOICE IS OURS

Climate change presented as an opportunity for choices.

Billed as “interactive,” this title hopes to engage its readers while offering explanations of the causes and potential effects of climate change and choices we can make to fight climate change. The pages are die cut with a uniformly sized central circle, allowing readers to spin an arrow embedded on the inside back cover to answer the decidedly leading question “would you chance it?” Each left-hand page loosely covers a topic; each right-hand page offers choices and actions the arrow can point to (“eat smart & cut emissions / don’t eat smart,” for instance). After explaining the major concepts, Miles goes on to describe effects of climate change on sea levels, weather, agriculture, ecosystems, disease. He shows that forested areas are shrinking and why they are so important in curbing the greenhouse effect. Finally he gives examples of people, young and old and around the world, who have spoken up about a variety of issues, including present-day climate activists. There is plentiful information, presented in short paragraphs and a disturbingly small font, plus definitions of important terms, questions to think about, and potential hands-on activities. The information is responsibly sourced but often rather general. A page on “Countries Working Together” doesn’t mention U.S. plans to withdraw from the World Climate Agreement. Sadly, the presentation concludes with an unsourced and quite-possibly-not-“Native American Proverb.”

Choose a less dizzying approach.