Review by Booklist Review
Environmental-planner-turned-pediatrician Hendrickson shares distressing examples of climate change--linked problems. For example, studies show that 30 to 70 percent of children who survived hurricanes Katrina, Andrew, and Sandy displayed mental health and learning problems that lasted for more than a year. Hendrickson weaves in anecdotes from her life in Reno, the fastest-warming city in the U.S., sharing childhood memories of Superman comic books, noting that his scientist father tried and failed to convince the Krypton council that everyone was in mortal danger before he saved his son by putting him on a spaceship to Earth. Hendrickson notes that a parallel story is now unfolding as we experience the hottest years ever recorded. Alas, Superman won't save us. No wonder a 16-year-old told Hendrickson she was unsure about bringing kids into this world. Only 100 companies produced nearly three-quarters of the greenhouse gases emitted since NASA scientist James Hansen warned Congress about climate change in 1988. This mother of three writes, "Surely our science will yield more than a chronicle of our end. Because climate change has a face, and it is a child's."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Pediatrician Hendrickson debuts with an affecting report on climate change's dire effects on young people. Hendrickson--who practices in Reno, Nev., the "fastest-warming city in the United States"--recounts such heartbreaking stories as watching a mother struggle to comfort her four-year-old son, who was hospitalized after wildfire smoke gave him respiratory problems, as he squirmed with discomfort caused by the nasal cannula feeding him oxygen. Profiles of young people across the country underscore the climate crisis's devastating scope. For instance, Hendrickson shares the stories of a boy from Houston, Tex., who was traumatized after barely escaping severe flooding from Hurricane Harvey when he was five, and a sixth grader from Phoenix, Ariz., who died of heatstroke after going on a hike on a 112-degree day in 2016. Such accounts are harrowing, and Hendrickson describes in disturbing detail how the body is affected by air pollution and extreme heat (the latter, she explains, leads to reductions in blood volume as the body dehydrates, reducing the regularity of heart rhythm due to low blood flow and causing the breakdown of muscle, which releases toxic proteins). This visceral study is not easily forgotten. Agent: AmandaUrban, CAA. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
An avid reader of the Superman comics growing up, pediatrician Hendrickson believes that superhero tales speak to today's world of fear and concerns about the environmental future of planet Earth. Working on the frontlines of climate change in Reno, NV, labeled as the fastest-warming city in the U.S., she believes global warming is the greatest moral crisis the world has ever faced collectively. She asserts that children are especially at risk due to the rapid changes in their bodies and minds as they develop. She urges parents--and other adults, for that matter--to play the superhero and stand up for children during these high-stakes times. Her research covers key areas such as Mexico City (for its poor air quality), where half of the children who participated in a study had particles embedded in their prefrontal cortex. The book also focuses on Arizona, a state that may become uninhabitable in the near future due to extreme heat, even though, a century ago, thousands flocked there for its dry air and warm temperatures, which were believed to help cure tuberculosis. VERDICT This is a compelling, page-turning read on the perils of global environmental issues and a call to action for parents.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Why the climate crisis is "a health crisis, first and foremost, for children." Pediatrician Hendrickson, a mother of three, lives in Reno, Nevada, the nation's "fastest-warming city" and one directly in the path of smoke of many California wildfires. Distressed at what she is witnessing in her practice, she adds to the steady stream of climate change polemics with a heavy emphasis on the scientific background and effect on vulnerable young bodies. Children are not merely small adults, she emphasizes. A newborn's immature systems--respiratory, neurological, immunological--require nearly two decades to mature, and a toxic environment, no less than malnutrition, disease, and abuse, can be crippling. Children raised in polluted air, she writes, "are more likely to have smaller, stiffer lungs, be prone to asthma, pneumonia, and bronchitis, and die younger than people raised in healthy air." Furthermore, children cannot cool their bodies as efficiently as adults, and Hendrickson's stories from America's heatstroke capital, Arizona, make for eye-opening, disheartening reading. That people in tropical nations are fleeing unbearable heat is old news, but the author notes that diseases from the global south are spreading farther afield. The world's greatest infectious killer, malaria, is appearing more frequently in the U.S. Mosquitoes have also brought new, obscure, and harder-to-treat viruses, including West Nile, Zika, and Chikungunya. They affect everyone, but children most of all. Unfortunately, this subject is so politicized that climate change deniers are unlikely to read this book, but compassionate, engaged citizens will find it educational--though the traditional how-to-fix-it conclusion seems only modestly hopeful. Like most writers on the topic, Hendrickson urges readers to take action as individuals: "Vote for leaders who will end fossil fuel subsidies…think about what your habits and purchases really cost." A pediatrician offers a unique perspective on the continuing dire situation regarding climate change. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
