My Climatebase fellowship has taught me so much. I’ve learned, for example, about companies that intentionally dumped toxins in the Amazon forest, killing indigenous people and the land. It’s happened multiple times throughout history so much so that there have been movies about it. Yet, it still happens.
I also learned that most of us are nutrition deficient because our soil is depleted. An orange eaten generations ago has the same nutritional value as four oranges today.
There were a lot of statistics, facts and tables that all end up with a pretty dire near future for us and the next generation. It’s not hard to imagine as things like planning a trip now come with the added stress of not only getting sick, but getting sick from Covid, dealing with wildfires, hurricanes and other nature disasters.
We are essentially killing ourselves for greed.
What are we leaving our kids? It’s a question I grapple with frequently, which is why I was happy to see a picture book that provides a realistic balance of the world we are living in today with the hope that we will get through it together.
Mary Annaise Heglar’s The World is Ours to Cherish: A Letter to a Child is illustrated by Vivian Mineker and published by Random House. It grapples with a difficult subject of climate change. But it begins with hope and magic, and ends with it as well.
I spoke with Louise Chawla recently. Louise is a Professor Emerita from the University of Colorado Boulder. She spent her life researching and working on involving young people to plan urban communities. I’m really honored that I got to speak with her. She taught me about the importance of teaching children about nature since they will end up being its caretaker.
The World is Ours to Cherish does this by showing children the magic of nature. In a world tempted by technology, it’s a reminder that there are more meaningful, magical experiences in the sky, in the oceans, and in the air. It reminds us all that nature isn’t something separate from us, but that is is a part of us.
It then dives into the reality-that we are now paying for the consequences of not taking care of the earth. Without being overly anxiety provoking, the author shares in a few sentences the way the world is different now than it was before. But that this gives us more reason to appreciate the good that still exists and that we can do something to continue to nurture it.
I love these lines:
“All this beauty, all this magic, is yours.
You belong to it and it belongs to you.
Take better care of it than anyone ever has.
The world will never stop changing.
But you will change it, too.”
As a kid, I felt such a deep connection with the earth. When I first learned our lakes and oceans were polluted, it hurt me in my soul. A picture book like this one reminds us that we are not alone in our worries about the future, that we will get through the good and bad together. It’s what I needed back then and especially right now.
The end provides five steps to inspire children, parents and classrooms to make a difference.
It’s such a good book and one that’s so needed right now. Highly recommend!
