Why Children’s Stories Are a Powerful Tool to Fight Climate Change – YES! Magazine

~ Becky Ross Michael

reading at beach

The children will inherit the environmental situation (mess) we have allowed on our planet, and we must make sure they have the tools to make life-saving decisions! This informative article discusses why children’s literature is so important for them, in addition to the facts of science…

“Stories that move us do so on a personal level and change us from within in ways that facts alone never could. This is especially true of young people, most of whom respond to stories with emotional intensity.”

Source: Why Children’s Stories Are a Powerful Tool to Fight Climate Change – YES! Magazine

53 thoughts on “Why Children’s Stories Are a Powerful Tool to Fight Climate Change – YES! Magazine”

  2. It is a great measure to try to instill in children the importance of preserving the environment. They are more receptive to receiving these teachings because their minds are less polluted than those of adults. We hope that the results will be seen in the short term. A good article since it gives importance to a very important issue such as nature conservation. Greetings, Becky. Have a good weekend and take care of your health.

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  5. Well said by you, Becky, and a great piece you linked to. I agree that children’s literature can be a powerful voice for good — and that includes spotlighting the existential threat of climate change in the hope that it will be adequately fought with serious action.

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  6. It’s funny but I was thinking about this this morning, not related to climate change, but related to children’s books and the lessons they teach. I had two books that really affected my world view forever. One was about a couple of men who made cardboard boxes and how incredibly useful the boxes were to people and if these two men stopped making boxes, the world would slow down drastically. The other was a book called “Something New Day” about a king who had to have something completely new every day. A lot of people died in the process of fulfilling his wish, but (of course) a little boy solved the problem and taught the king that every day is something new. Powerful things, children’s books.

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    1. Glad you liked the article, John. Using our tools to fight climate change only involves politics when people choose to make it so. In my opinion, EVERYONE on the planet should be concerned and taking steps to turn things around, no matter their political affiliations.

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  9. One of the best things about children’s books is the lessons they teach. If we want to make positive changes in the world, then reaching out to those who will be the future leaders makes total sense.

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  11. This is why, when I wrote “Penny Down the Drain” I had the characters cleaning up the beach and making rubbish into fertilizer. While the witch tried to use nature to destroy the Magic Land, the children found ways to help the whole planet.

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  13. Wonderful article! Thank you for sharing this link–stories are an important and impactful way to preserve knowledge for future generations–what we do/don’t do when it comes to the environment–animals/plants that might have once existed, but are now, sadly, lost.

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  14. Thanks, Becky. This reminds me that children discover the world anew not having any preconceptions until they ‘learn’ what things are like. The beloved story time has always been used for teaching … I still remember that not washing behind my ears could lead to potatoes growing there! I hope the power of stories continues to be used for the good of the planet and for the children who grow up living with the consequences of everything that has been done to it. My inner child wants these stories too!

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  19. Wow! Thank you for sharing this ~ I always remember a lyric going, “When you are young they assume you know nothing” from Taylor Swift, and I can’t help but relate it to this. Children’s voices can really be just as powerful as adults in the fight to save our planet ❤

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  21. Thanks for sharing that! The talk about story in that article reminds me of the book Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall. One of the problems Marshall notes is that climate skeptics were more successful in telling their narratives than people who support climate change (my stereotype for this is the climate scientist who is backed by numbers but can’t effectively communicate them to the broader public).

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