♦ Author and editor Nora Shalaway Carpenter (Fault Lines) pulls together an inspiring and varied collection of cli-fi short stories, all designed to encourage hope in their readers. Onward includes dystopian, speculative, and realistic fiction as well as poetry and essays that highlight the myriad ways the climate crisis manifests and contributes to the “intense climate grief and hopelessness” of young people. But as Carpenter points out in her foreword, “it is story—much more than facts—that changes minds.”
Onward opens forcefully with “The Care and Feeding of Mother” by two-time Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly. This dystopian story features a girl in an overfarmed world who finds and nurtures a virtually unheard-of resource: seeds. Kelly’s brief narrative is cynically hopeful, reminding the audience of what they take for granted and showing that there’s still time for change. Jeff Zentner uses poetry to tell a fictionalized account of “Tellico Lake,” the Tellico Dam, and the near extinction of the snail darter. Zentner emphasizes that “it’s easy to think something will never happen/ if you can’t see it happening right away.” In Xelena González‘s essay “The World Within,” she shares a personal experience from a college writing class where she realized that “when we look at the world through a lens of familial love, destruction becomes harder to inflict.”
The vast array of voices, perspectives, topics, and styles make Onward a distinct and intriguing collection. A QR code following the acknowledgements leads to a slew of additional resources that will “allow readers to take some kind of action immediately,” helping them to move onward… and to save the world.
—Shelf Awareness, starred review
Agathering of 16 short stories exploring climate change through a broad variety of perspectives.
This climate fiction anthology addresses the “severe anxiety over ecological devastation and disasters” experienced by “Gen Dread,” a term coined by Dr. Britt Wray, a researcher in climate change and mental health. The diverse contributors address readers through entries that include realistic, historical, and speculative fiction as well as a personal essay and explore water, trash, ecology, land use, climate disasters, flora and fauna, and more. Together, they convey both a slice-of-life quality and a feeling of urgency. Optimism blossoms in Erin Entrada Kelly’s “The Care and Feeding of Mother,” which is set in a futuristic, over-farmed, storm-battered world. Extinction takes center stage in the midst of student government elections in “The Manatee Is Not a Meme” by Gloria Muñoz. Jeff Zentner’s “Tellico Lake,” written in verse, is a powerful retelling of history reshaped by a dam. Many of the pieces will linger with readers. In Karina Iceberg’s “Worldfall,” the prose crackles as wildfires blaze. In “The Divining,” by Kim Johnson, water diviners find hope in both stories and water. And “Critobis,” by Aya de Leon, is a searing story of remembrance and survival set in a landscape reshaped by rising oceans. A QR code takes readers to general resources that help with action, inspiration, and mental health support, as well as materials connected to each story.
A powerful look at a shifting world.
—Kirkus Reviews
This compilation of 16 short stories, essays, and poems is designed to help young people work through feelings and fears associated with climate change. With a mostly positive throughline and back matter listing further resources, the main theme is hope. Many young people are nearly paralyzed with fear regarding the inevitable effects of climate change, and hope, alongside the acknowledgement that climate change is a real problem, is a profoundly important thing to cultivate. Several stories feature dystopian settings, like the Dust Bowl–esque opening story, “The Care and Feeding of Mother,” or a wildfire-covered Alaska in “Worldfall.” Others, such as the anger-inducing “The Manatee Is Not a Meme” or the frighteningly convincing “Water Is Life,” showcase what the near future could be if one or two things go awry. All the stories feature characters that have the capability to do great things, but they’re never by themselves; a message of community radiates through the pages. This timely work makes the seemingly impossible problem of climate change feel a little more manageable with its bite-size stories.
—Booklist
In this wide-ranging collection of poems, short stories, and an essay, climate change is explored in ways that are meant to inspire hope rather than despair, encouraging readers toward activism and a resistance against the rapid destruction and consumption of Earth’s resources. The characters are sharp and bold across multiple genres in this anthology of sixteen works, and each is able to see what needs to be done even if some are still coming to understand how they can be part of a solution. In “The Care and Feeding of Mother” by Erin Entrada Kelly, characters painstakingly grow a small plant from real seeds and real soil—amid a world in which nature is made up of trademarked replications of what once was, this becomes an act of hope and resistance. Jeff Zentner’s “Tellico Lake” is a verse story that follows a young boy and the real-life fight to keep a dam from being built in the Tennessee Valley in the 1970s when the presence of small, endangered fish grants the area a (temporary) stay of demolition. A brief foreword explores how the younger generation, perched on the edge of an environmental cliff, has responded to a tenuous future, with reactions ranging from ferocious determination to resigned apathy. The stories nudge toward the former, even while acknowledging that it can be hard to hold optimism while the world burns. There is a rich diversity of writing styles, voices, and perspectives that keeps the collection fresh and each entry distinct, though all adhere to the central theme. Brief author notes and a list of resources will be part of the final version.
The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
How do you find hope in a world “on fire”? Carpenter answers this question with a unique anthology specifically designed to combat the climate grief of “Gen Dread” through storytelling. This collection of authors, including Jeff Zentner, Erin Entrada Kelly, Kim Johnson, Gloria Muñoz, and others, uses fictionalized accounts to explore the human cost of the environmental crisis. The genres represent a vast range: Zentner delivers a heartbreaking work of historical fiction regarding the real-life Tellico Dam, while Johnson offers a speculative future where teens “divine” water in a parched Southwest. Venkatraman uses verse to tell the story of Indian refugees, and Iceberg introduces sci-fi elements through characters from the Aleut and Alutiiq Nations who possess supernatural powers. The diversity is a highlight, as the collection features South Asian, Latine, Indigenous, and Black protagonists whose cultural heritages are central to their resilience. While the writing quality is predictably uneven across the stories—some are visceral gut-punches while others feel more didactic—the overall focus on psychological resilience is highly effective. The book is bolstered by excellent information, including author’s notes on real-world events like the Flint water crisis and QR codes for immediate climate action. VERDICT This is a vital and uniquely optimistic resource. If libraries with an audience concerned about climate crisis, this is a necessary and valuable title.
—School Library Journal
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