Climate Is Just the Start

Starred review from March 1, 2025
Grades 4-7 *Starred Review* Loach, a Black, Jamaican-born, UK-based climate activist, offers encouragement and inspiring advice to young people on what they can do to help tackle the climate crisis. She explains how she initially went to medical school, but the plight of some friends around the world experiencing devastating habitat loss due to climate change caused her to change direction. She believes that, "If you are not moved by the world, you will not act to move the world." The first step in fighting climate change, she says, "is working out how--and why--the world has these wounds in the first place" and explains the cause, attributing it to the use of fossil fuels and big oil companies. The book discusses overconsumption of natural resources with a focus on unrestrained capitalism, climate denial, climate delay, greenwashing, and environmental racism. Although Loach offers practical suggestions for combating climate change, her point is to encourage young people to seriously upend how they think of fighting climate change in a radical way. She advocates that our work on climate change "needs to go to the root of injustice, oppression, and the creation of the crisis, and tackle it there." This book is full of rousing advice that will motivate and energize young climate activists. With poetry, infographics, glossary, and further resources (all not seen). Highly recommended for all.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2025
A climate activist calls for action. Loach, author of the adult bestsellerIt's Not That Radical (2023), restates her argument in this title for younger readers. Acknowledging that many kids and teens are rightfully disturbed by global warming and other injustices, she uses understandable metaphors, a conversational tone, and relatable stories to encourage them to listen to their feelings, imagine a better world, and work to make a difference. A Jamaican immigrant who now lives in England, Loach discusses how her own identity as a Black woman informs her work and beliefs; notably, she teases out systems of oppression such as white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism as she stresses that the impacts of climate change disproportionately affect those living in the Global South. As bleak as things may seem, her passion is evident as she urges readers to "fight against fossil fuels, against exploitation, against capitalism, and for a world where we all live in dignity." She decries consumerism, explores how the burning of fossil fuels has resulted in disappearing beaches, and pushes readers to organize for change. Her vision may seem radical to some, but, as she points out, "Lots of things that most people now would find ridiculous used to be accepted." Infographics break up the text, and the book concludes with an appendix of resources and glossary (unseen). Final art not seen. A rousing appeal for those concerned about the state of the world.(Nonfiction. 10-14)

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