Onward

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

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