Our house is on fire Greta Thunberg's call to save the planet

The remarkable rise of Greta Thunberg, Sweden's most famous teenage climate activist, is used to introduce the threat of climate change and inspire a call to action. Thunberg is described as quiet and invisible without referencing her autism until she learns about the warming planet. Her plunge into research, depicted through eight similar spreads in which she witnesses calamitous weather on a TV screen, leads to her school strike, sparking the global children's movement for which she is known. While Thunberg's story and words carry undeniable fire, the book itself brings little to the table. Winter (Sisters: Venus and Serena Williams, 2019) uses several quotes to enliven the otherwise stale text, and the monotonous illustrations fall short of her usual standard. No information is given on climate change itself; rather, the book seeks to encourage youth activism in general. Still, this may (briefly) be the only picture book featuring the young Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and while younger audiences may find themselves puzzled and possibly frightened, others will be led to further interest in Thunberg and activism.--Ronny Khuri Copyright 2019 Booklist

As in Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story of Africa, Winter once again offers a stirring profile of an environmental hero, this time teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. After learning about climate change at school, Greta, a quiet girl who has felt invisible, spends hours reading and watching films "about our warming world." Overwhelmed with sadness ("She barely ate or spoke"), she devises a way to raise awareness, embarking on a school strike and ultimately sparking an international movement of children marching and speaking out for planetary health. Winter introduces the alarming facts in scenes of the young student as she views evidence of climate change--bleached coral, flooded homes, wildfires, endangered animals--in framed images, as if on a screen. As the movement takes shape, square panels, contained in white negative space, turn into full-bleed pages of high-energy activity. Taking her title from Thunberg's urgent call to action, Winter ends this timely directive for young readers with a simple, powerful question: "What will you do?" Ages 3--8. (Sept.)

The 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 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) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.