An essential, inspired chorus of voices echoing the urgency of action in the fight against climate change.
Diverse contributors explore the many dynamics of climate change.
Climate activist Flanagan launched her environmental justice project during the summer of 2020 amid the “intertwined crises” of surging Covid-19 infections, racial unrest, and California’s epic wildfires. The book features the author “in conversation with 39 women, nonbinary, and gender-expansive climate leaders,” and their impassioned discussions sound the alarm for practical solutions from their areas of expertise within the grassroots climate movement. The text includes important perspectives from Black, Indigenous, people of color, feminist, queer, and other marginalized communities, countering the narrative that Flanagan characterizes as “rooted in more masculine ideals such as efficiency, competition, ego, scale, and domination.” Ruth Miller, of Dena’ina Athabaskan descent, reflects on the effects of climate change in her native Alaska, which experiences the degradation at a drastically faster rate. Olivia Juarez, “a lifelong resident of the Goshute and Eastern Shoshone lands of the Greater Salt Lake region,” advocates for aggressive wilderness preservation, while Emmy Award–winning actor Casey Camp-Horinek promotes the Rights of Nature Movement, which realigns natural law with human law. Native Los Angeles holistic ecologist Heather Rosenberg works to solve some of her region’s issues with a multipronged approach using the LA River as a model. Nonbinary educator Ceci Pineda discusses how queer communities intersect with climate futures and demonstrates the power of a community composting initiative as a method of methane emission reduction. Other contributors introduce initiatives such as seedkeeping, eco-friendly prescribed burns, and fossil fuel resistance. Most importantly, the book offers “resilience tool spotlight” segments as resources for readers to directly connect and participate in these movements. Each impassioned essay is highly educational as well as encouraging, and the cross-cultural, inclusive perspectives show the power of proactive, real-world climate solutions. The book includes a helpful glossary.
An essential, inspired chorus of voices echoing the urgency of action in the fight against climate change.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781623179021
Page Count: 256
Publisher: North Atlantic
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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