How to Teach Grown-Ups About Climate Change

We need more books like this! I love the attitude, which is awesome. Kids can influence their grownups because they care about each other. I've seen kids do the same kind of thing when they try to get their loved ones to stop smoking.
In this book, the science of climate change is explained in simple terms with helpful illustrations. There are details about real ways we're already seeing the effects of climate change and what we can expect. Importantly, there are several actions we can take to make things better.
At the end of the book, there are other sources we can look at for more information, including some books and websites geared towards kids. And there are even more ways we can do our part to hold off the effects of climate change.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

Important information about climate change is given in an entertaining and accessible format book. Facts are explained clearly to allow anyone to understand what climate change is, what can be the results if it’s ignored, and things to do about it - both simple and more complex. It is essential that everyone understands climate change, and this book is a vital connection toward making that happen. As an adult, I am grateful to understand more facts about it, and to be better able to explain it to my grandchildren.

This book was extremely informative, but also engaging. I learned a lot as an adult, and I know my students would enjoy this book in our classroom. The graphics and charts were easy to understand, and everything was very well-written. I plan to get a copy of this book for my classroom to use for a science unit.

“Children can foster climate change concern among their parents.” That was the title of a 2019 paper in Nature Climate Change, one
of a number of studies that provide evidence for the effectiveness of intergenerational climate change education. Patricia Daniels’s How to Teach GrownUps about Climate Change, aimed at readers between 8 and 12 years old, takes the ball and runs with it.

Daniels’s book adeptly uses humor to engage the attention of its readers: black-and-white-and-green cartoons, often featuring talking animals; references to bodily functions (cow farts, cow burps, and—in a bit of a triumph—dinosaur farts); and jokey asides and digressions. Half a dozen attractive infographics on topics such as “Our Climate: A History” and “Mammals, by Biomass” occupy two-page spreads.

The scientific content of the book, presented at a level suitable for the readership, is accurate, as might be expected from a book with a foreword by Michael E. Mann, a distinguished climate scientist and member of NCSE’s board of directors. The history of climate change science is briefly sketched, with Eunice Foote, John Tyndall, and Svante Arrhenius, but there is no discussion of later developments.

Particularly impressive is the treatment of carbon footprints. Kids are invited to consider their own carbon footprints as part of taking action on climate change, but then immediately reminded, “It’s not just individual people who have these footprints. Companies and governments also have carbon footprints ... Don’t let them tell you that it’s just up to you to solve climate change” (page 55).

A gap in the book’s generally admirable treatment of climate action is education. Its readers will be spending the next decade or so of their lives in formal education, so why not discuss what they could do to engage their school communities in taking action on climate change, including supporting efforts to improve curriculum and instruction?

Climate change denial propaganda campaigns aimed at schoolchildren are not new, but in 2023, no fewer than four—from the Heartland Institute, the CO2 Coalition, EverBright Media’s Kids Guides, and PragerU Kids—were in the headlines. How to Teach Grown-Ups about Climate Change is a welcome, and needed, corrective.

There is a quiz at the end of the book for kids to see if their grown up was paying attention, so be warned! Who knew about cow burps?! This book has a really good explanation of what is false information. I found the illustrations to be engaging as well.

I loved this book and loved the way it was written but it was only available in a temporary ARC that was deleted before I could finish it and publicly review it. What I saw was excellent.

This will be the perfect book to add to a library's collection especially one that works with a lot of homeschool families. I think that this book breaks an intense topic like global warming and makes it easily digestible for kids and the adults in their lives. I love that the way that this book is written kids will be able to read it for themselves and then be able to go and have meaningful conversations with their family members. I look forward to finding more books in this same vain.