PLANET UNDER PRESSURE

A grab bag of global concerns and trends.

This slim survey has evidently been designed to shake young audiences out of complacent expectations of growing up to a serene future. It offers superficial pictures of four general issues—increasing population pressures, immigrants and refugees, tourism and online connectivity, and economic globalization—plus a roundup of impending worldwide threats such as climate change and pandemics. Along with laying out causes and consequences for each anxiety producer, Dickmann repeatedly asks readers whether local agendas should trump broader ones in order to get to the main message that any real solutions are only feasible through international, or at least collective, cooperation. But she leaves to others practical strategies for achieving any such in the face of real-world parochial politics, pervasive racial and ethnic prejudice, self-interest, and shortsightedness. She points instead to organizations like the U.N., makes facile suggestions (“Can you plant [a tree] at home or at school?”), and inserts vague prompts to buy local and like bromides. The boxed narrative blocks are placed over generic montages of maps, charts, and photographs, with some diversity of skin color and national origin visible among the rare human figures that aren’t obscured by angle or distance. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

More alarmist than helpful, and even at that, middle graders are unlikely to find anything new here to fret about.