Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg's Call to Save the Planet
by Jeanette Winter
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Tells the story of Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenage climate activist who has sparked a worldwide student movement and is demanding action from world leaders who refuse to address climate change.Tags
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he origin story of the teenage climate change superhero.
Once, as she puts it, “the invisible girl in the back who doesn’t say anything,” Thunberg has, over just the last two years, become a major young presence in the environmental movement, inspiring “Friday school strikes” worldwide and challenging governing bodies to get off the stick: “I want you to panic,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.” Skipping Thunberg’s personal history aside from characterizing her as one who “could think about one thing for a long, long time” (an ability Thunberg associates with her Asperger’s diagnosis, unnamed here), Winter pithily retraces the course of show more her transformation. She begins with a teacher’s lecture on climate change and a period of intense reading and video watching and then goes on to show how Thunberg’s lonely Friday picket outside Stockholm’s Parliament building gains local, then international, support. The illustrations, equally spare, often place the white teenager front and center before culminating in a double-page spread filled with children of diverse hues and styles of dress holding up signs reading “Don’t Burn MY Future” and like urgent messages, followed by a direct question in big, cut-out letters: “WHAT WILL YOU DO?” As one sign puts it, “There Is No Planet B” for any of us.
A compact but cogent tribute to a single voice for change that now leads a rising chorus. (source notes) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)
-Kirkus Review show less
Once, as she puts it, “the invisible girl in the back who doesn’t say anything,” Thunberg has, over just the last two years, become a major young presence in the environmental movement, inspiring “Friday school strikes” worldwide and challenging governing bodies to get off the stick: “I want you to panic,” she told the World Economic Forum in Davos. “I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.” Skipping Thunberg’s personal history aside from characterizing her as one who “could think about one thing for a long, long time” (an ability Thunberg associates with her Asperger’s diagnosis, unnamed here), Winter pithily retraces the course of show more her transformation. She begins with a teacher’s lecture on climate change and a period of intense reading and video watching and then goes on to show how Thunberg’s lonely Friday picket outside Stockholm’s Parliament building gains local, then international, support. The illustrations, equally spare, often place the white teenager front and center before culminating in a double-page spread filled with children of diverse hues and styles of dress holding up signs reading “Don’t Burn MY Future” and like urgent messages, followed by a direct question in big, cut-out letters: “WHAT WILL YOU DO?” As one sign puts it, “There Is No Planet B” for any of us.
A compact but cogent tribute to a single voice for change that now leads a rising chorus. (source notes) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)
-Kirkus Review show less
WHAT WILL YOU DO?
Bold, stark, blunt, and true, this is the story of how Greta Thunberg's school strike to protest climate change sparked a worldwide movement and propelled her to the world stage. Some of Greta's direct quotes are included.
Our House Is On Fire is similar in length to picture books for 3- and 4-year-olds, but due to its content might be best for early elementary students.
Back matter includes a summary of the story, a list of countries in which students marched, sources, and quotes.
Bold, stark, blunt, and true, this is the story of how Greta Thunberg's school strike to protest climate change sparked a worldwide movement and propelled her to the world stage. Some of Greta's direct quotes are included.
Our House Is On Fire is similar in length to picture books for 3- and 4-year-olds, but due to its content might be best for early elementary students.
Back matter includes a summary of the story, a list of countries in which students marched, sources, and quotes.
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Author Information
48+ Works 11,997 Members
Jeanette Winter has written and/or illustrated over a dozen children's books, including "Calavera Abecedario" and "The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq," as well as biographies of Diego Rivera, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georgia O'Keeffe among others. Winter is celebrated for her distinctive painting style, picture design, and usage of show more brilliant colors. She has received the American Illustrators Guild Award twice. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Greta Thunberg
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