When the Earth Shook
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
On the 2021 Green Earth Book Award Long List!
For the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a mythic framing of climate change and one little girl’s response.
Alya and Atik are stars. Their job is to twinkle in the night sky over Earth, and for billions of years they do it well. Plants stretch toward them. Animals look up at them. And, eventually, humans gaze up at them and marvel. But then humans invent powerplants, factories, and cars, and smog pours into Earth’s atmosphere. It becomes harder and harder for Alya and Atik to do their jobs—until, finally, the stars yell at Earth, and Earth feels sick and begins to shake, and things look pretty dire.
The clueless king’s response is to command Earth to stop shaking. But a little girl named Axiom tells the king to hush, then tells humans what they must do to make the Earth feel better. When the Earth Shook provides a mythical framing for kids to understand that it will be their job to help save the Earth. Bravo, Axiom! Keep using that huge megaphone until the earth no longer shakes! Axiom’s list of instructions to humans—some well-known and others new but critically important—appears in the back of the book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An anthropomorphized look at climate change finds stars Alya and Atik with one job: twinkling above Earth, where plants, animals, and eventually humans look up to them. But when humans pollute Earth and obscure the stars, the duo grows upset, shouting "STOP! You are making it impossible for us to do our job." Earth, who already feels ill, begins to sob and shake. Though a king orders Earth to cease, it's the actions of Axiom, a girl with a megaphone and an impassioned speech, that ultimately help "make Earth feel better" (one spread shows figures recycling and hanging out laundry), allowing Alya and Atik to be seen once more. Dark-toned art, done in pastels on recycled paper, conveys a pressing sense of doom. Though the murky, theatrical plot offers few clear takeaways, Axiom's speech, presented as an endnote, provides real-world methods for "Earth Warriors" to make a difference. Ages 5 8.
