Talking climate with kids

There is a refreshing change from the environmental studies textbooks of yore that assigned children a to-do list of cautionary measures such as closing taps and switching off fans

“If every country around the world says NO to fossil fuels, we can defeat the climate change monster,” writes Bibek Bhattacharya in Our Beautiful World, which was picked as the Children’s Book of the Year (Ages 8+) at the Publishing Next Industry Awards last week.

Illustrated by Joanna Davala and published by Pratham Books, what makes this book special is that it does not talk down to young readers and tell them what they ought to do to fix the climate crisis. They are not the ones who brought the planet to its current state of ruin; their ancestors did. What