This Book Will Save The Planet – A Climate Justice Primer for Activists and Changemakers

‘To reach climate justice, we need to understand the unjust systems that underpin most of our societies’ – this colourful and radical small book about climate change is far more than a science text. Dany Sigwalt is teaching youth about climate but also asking them to step back from the formula they know and examine climate issues with a much wider lense.

With a chatty and cool writing style Sigwalt is showing the reader how to employ critical analysis, how to understand privilage, how to include minority voices and much more. Each chapter is clearly defined, each run of text is cut into digestible chunks and the book is interspersed with meme like inspirational text, practical activities and questions to ponder.Sigwalt covers huge ideas like extractive capatilsm, disability justice, complicated emissions science and community resilience but she manages to do it without coming across as dogmatic or patronising.

The key themes are yes climate change is coming and it is bad but we can’t blame our neighbour for not recycling, we need to look at systematic change, how we fit into that and blame the corporations who exploite. Of course Sigwalt explains it much better than I can! I would highly recommend this for high school libraries, science classrooms, social studies teachers and smart, caring youth enviromentalists.

Title: This Book Will Save The Planet – A Climate Justice Primer for Activists and Changemakers

Author: Dany Sigwalt

Illustrator: Aurelia Durand

Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books

ISBN: 9780711268876

RRP: $22.99

Format: Paperback

Date of Publication: August 2022

Ages: 10 upward

Themes: Climate Crises, intersectionality, community, activism

Do you have any advisory warnings for this book? none

Would this book work as a read-aloud? Perhaps, pieces at a time

Is there a particular part of the country that it’s set in? N/A

Reviewer: Lucy Black, Librarian, Mt Cook School Wellington

How are you recommending this book? Highly Recommended

What’s the book’s opening sentence? I want us to join together and help build a future that makes people better off than they were before we saved the world.

Buy this book here.