If your anything like me then you are always looking for ways to encourage environmentalism in your children. It is a big part of my life and I want my kids to grow up and want to be have a deep love for the earth and for protecting it. Sometimes it can be hard to talk to your kids about these matters, especially when the concepts of environmentalism…such as global warming for instance…are so deep. It can be tough to find the right words and make them understand.
I was happy to see today that a revised edition of the book An Inconveneient Truth is now available for kids. An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming is geared towards kid in grades 5-8.
This young readers’ version of the recent documentary film’s companion adult volume cuts the page count by about a third but preserves the original’s cogent message and many of its striking visuals. After explaining that his interest in the environment predates even his mother’s reading of Silent Spring aloud to him as a teenager, Gore proceeds to document steeply rising carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, and then to link that to accelerating changes in temperature and precipitation patterns worldwide. Using easy-to-grasp graphics and revealing before-and-after photos, he shows how glaciers and ice shelves are disappearing all over the globe with alarming speed, pointing to profound climate changes and increased danger from rising sea levels in the near future. O’Connor rephrases Gore’s arguments in briefer, simpler language without compromising their flow, plainly intending to disturb readers rather than frighten them. He writes measured, matter-of-fact prose, letting facts and trends speak for themselvesbut, suggesting that “what happens locally has worldwide consequences,” he closes with the assertion that we will all have to “change the way we live our lives.” Like the film, this title may leave readers to look elsewhere for both documentation and for specific plans of action, but as an appeal to reason it’s as polished and persuasive as it can be.John Peters, New York Public Library
Now if only they would make one for kids even younger…
