A Climate in Chaos; Neil Layton

Never has a book been more appropriately titled. Climate change is a big problem. Don’t let anyone fool you, the climate on the earth is changing and it is not a good thing. It is getting hotter, the polar ice caps are melting and humans are creating more dangerous carbon emissions than the planet knows what to do with.

Climate change is so important that it has even made the news. Yes that’s right, turn on your TV or radio and there’s a good chance you’ll hear about climate change. Heard of Greta Thunberg? Yep, she’s all about the dangers of climate change and trying to get everyone to do their bit to help. If you’ve missed school on a Friday afternoon to go and protest about climate change it’s all because of young Greta.

The problem with climate change is that no-one seems to thinks it’s their problem or responsibility. That’s because climate change occurs over many years so what we do now we might not see the effects of until years later. As humans we’re very good at living in the present and we don’t worry too much about the future. Humans are also experts at destroying and damaging the things they need to survive.

But it is not all doom and gloom. There is lots that we can do about it, and with that we can hopefully make the climate a little less chaotic. Beautiful illustrations, captions, speech bubbles and text boxes explain complicated concepts to younger children without leaving out any of the important stuff.

A Climate In Chaos is a superb book. It makes the big ideas around climate change accessible to young people. Covering a range of topics including greenhouse gases, the impact of warmer weather and how to reduce carbon emissions.

The book finishes on a positive note highlighting simple changes that everyone can make so we can all help do our bit to protect the environment and reduce carbon emissions. Countries that have made positive changes to reduce harmful emissions are highlighted and there is a lovely design of a sustainable house.

A brilliant non-fiction book that will educate, inform, entertain and hopefully inspire.

Recommended for 6+.