And How You Can Help

Author: Neal Layton 
Year: 2020
Publisher: Wren&rook
Suggested age range: 7-10
Price: £7.99

A Climate in Chaos is a 30-page, comprehensively illustrated book which was shortlisted for the Association for Science Education’s Book of the Year awards in 2021.

“Hey folks! Have you heard about climate change? It’s really important. It affects all of us living on Planet Earth right now.” This is how the book starts and finishes, presumably with the aim of explaining why in the pages between – I think it achieves that very well.

It has a lovely overview of the difference between weather and climate, greenhouse gases and climate change before dedicating almost half the book to mitigation strategies ranging from the very small actions that individual young people could easily take, to national-scale policies.  

What I don’t like about this book is very limited but includes that it falls into the common trap of drawing the greenhouse gases in a layer at the top of the atmosphere (a bit like the ozone layer), and maybe that the impacts of climate change it lists focus entirely on the natural world. Including some impacts on people might help the issue seem more relevant.

This book would probably appeal most to a keen reader, particularly if they already had an interest in science and/ or the natural world.