Dear TBR,
I was a lover of animals as a child and quite fond of biology as a tenth grader, but as I grew older, the small school I attended didn’t do many of my STEM courses justice – and I fell out of love with science around about the time first semester chemistry grades came out. (That wasn’t pretty.) My struggles with non-fiction are well documented, so this week’s reading was kind of a Read Harder challenge for myself – Earth science AND nonfiction. Oof. However, I was in good hands with the talented authors of these books, and they ably took me from picture book to easy reader to older MG/lower YA adventure. (Full disclosure, I am old blog-friends with the Gratz family, and semi-know author Marcie Flinchum Atkins from Poetry Friday, but this doesn’t change my opinion of their books.)
Wait, Rest, Pause, by Marcie Flinchum Atkins: This book is a perfect balance between full-color photographic illustrations and brief word pictures how vertebrates and invertebrates handle changing temperature and seasons. This book lends itself handily to classroom science explorations, giving various definitions in the back matter for different types of dormancy, including diapause (invertebrate suspension), brumination (cold weather torpor), estivation (dry/hot weather dormancy), and the more familiar hibernation. There’s a lot packed into a very small book, and I could imagine several of the brilliant nine-year-olds I taught checking this one out of the classroom library for SSR over and over again.
Over and Under the Canyon, by Kate Messner: Kate Messner’s Over & Under series from Chronicle Books is listed as being for kids 3-8 – which is kind of an interesting span. It’s a great read-aloud though, with joyfully whimsical art by Christopher Silas Neal which makes the semi-fictional series fun for solo readers as well. An unnamed brown boy and his mother are hiking through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, clambering up the hills and through the washes, marveling at (and occasionally just avoiding) all the wonderful wildlife there. The small brown boy (WHY is he not wearing a hat, Mr. Neal???) especially is tired and hot when they reach their destination – glorious wildflowers, as the desert blooms. I’ve always wanted to go to this State Park because it’s known for its diverse beetle population; friends have gone camping there, set up a white sheet with a lamp behind it, and a tripod, and caught all manner of night-crawling desert insects on film. The glow-in-the-dark scorpions make me want to go camping there a leetle bit less, however!
Two Degrees, by Alan Gratz: Okay – one thing to know about the work of Alan Gratz is that he brings the emo. Even his Horatio Wilkes series way back when were so impactful because you cared a lot about the characters and their families/drama/mistakes. Well, add that mastery in emo to a climate crisis braided into three stories and you have a book that hits you right in the gut.
Three climate alarms rang loudly in this book, beginning with the Sierras, moving on to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, and then moving to Miami, Florida. Fire, ice (polar bears), and floods (hurricanes). Like the best books, the narrative is quick-paced, dumping you jump right into the action with a brief glimpse of the characters’ relationships and annoyances… and then the metaphorical heat turns up. And up. And up. And just when things reach a pitch — the voice changes to the next set of characters. (It is no joke that his website says “Putting fictional kids in danger since 2006. The man does not lie.) Alan Gratz uses this ensemble cast storytelling style to great – and legit terrifying – effect. This book is marketed for ages eight and up, and it crosses over effortlessly from younger readers all the way to adults.
One thing that I loved is that Gratz depicted climate change deniers in this book. Like, blatant, good, “normal” loving white parents who were like, “This isn’t our fault. We’ll be fine. We’ll be safe.” People who only worried that their celebrations and parties would be disrupted. His characters were clear about the inequities that money and neighborhoods provide. It won’t surprise you that this book has been banned because We Don’t Talk About Climate Change in some areas of the U.S.
While all of the stories were terrifying – especially the hurricane, which washed away people and houses and sank boats while they were occupied, the hardest bit for this California girl to read was the fire… because I remember – all too well – the Tubbs Fire in 2017. It decimated parts of Santa Rosa, a city where I used to live – neighborhoods only a half mile from our old house, and the credit union branch where we banked, as well as my husband’s workplace. It was mind blowing – a fire right in the middle of a populated city. It was the worst fire I’d ever even heard of… until the next year, when the Camp Fire took out Feather River in 2018, which is, in part, the fire which Alan Gratz based his fictional fire on. …And we’ve been on a horrible, terrible roll in this state ever since.
On a personal note, I am overwhelmed by the climate crisis. I am emotionally crippled by the realities before us. Like the Floridians able to name the litany of hurricanes, I know the Cal Fire names, too. The Tubbs Fire took my confidence that fire was something that happened in uninhabited places, but the Caldor Fire took out a large swath of the El Dorado Forest and a camp I loved, worked at for six years and whose board I served on for another five years and I just don’t see how I can go back and see what was, and what never will be again. I hate damage that feels to big to comprehend – and I’ve not lost a home or family. I imagine that this book has been a rough one for readers who have suffered losses to read. But, as I teared up, I took away two quotes from this book which I hold dear in my heart. One, during the hurricane, the main character realizes that, “Nobody was a stranger in a storm.” And two, the rallying cry that was repeated twice, first by an adult, and then by a young adult, “We don’t have to do everything… We just gotta do something.
Legit words to live by.
Fresh onto the TBR:
- A Terrible Place for a Nest, by Sara Levine
- Woe, by Lucy Knisley
- The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill, by Rowena Miller
- Tree, Table, Book, by Lois Lowry
Until the next book, 📖
Still A Constant Reader
