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Calling cool kids and cool parents
January 18, 2008

Our friends at Progressive Kid recently published a wonderful book – A Hot planet needs cook kids. Thanks for sending me a copy, Sarah and Julie! Aside from running an online green retail, they focused their energy on writing this informative book for kids. Bill McKibben gave the book a thumb up: “What’s so dangerous about global warming is that it leaves many people feeling hopeless, as if nothing they could do would matter. This book makes it clear that that’s not the case. It shows young people how they are able to help.”

I read the small book in one sitting last weekend and learned and relearned quite a few fascinating facts. Anyone remember exactly what “thermohaline circulation” is? How about all the layers in soil – humus, topsoil, eluviation layer, subsoil, regolith and bedrock? Seventy three pages later, I have re-acquired the knowledge picked up when I was a 10 year old – the intended audience of the book.

Often, “people against nature” is the framework through which we see our relationship with the environment, humans being an integral part of nature somehow cast aside. With a concise but very clear approach, this book re-adjusts the framework to “people in nature”. A Hot Planet steps through the living elements in our eco-system and the stress they are undergoing right now. Reading the book, I remembered that my friend Jamie once said, “every time we destroy a part of the living eco-system, a piece of our humanity dies with it.”

At places the facts do become depressing and urgent. Were I a 12 year old, I’d get furious with adults around me - What have you been doing to my future? I thought you’d known better. I’d want my parents to read this book with me and then read it again. The book then devotes the second half to real actions – what people are doing and what a young reader can do (other than yelling at your parents). Some actions require adults to take the lead, such as “junk your junk mail” and “shop at farmers’ market”; others can easily be done by kids themselves – play outside, not just in the virtual world (why can’t that be on my to-do list?), turn off water while brushing your teeth, recycle bottles and cans, and many more.

I also really appreciate the mini-stories of eco-heroes: Rachel Carson, Wangari Maathai, and Pablo Fajardo, for example. They demonstrate to the kids that what they do matter and that they too can become heroes.

I am excited to share this book with the kids around me. Written for a 10+ year old, it is too advanced for my children. So next stop for this book – my 12-year old niece, whose parents are advanced consumers at the post-doctoral level (hey, I get to say this because they are family :)). Look for a real review from a pre-teen soon.

CindyW at Organicpicks

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