Reviewed by Quin Nelson (2019-2020)

What will you do to protect your home? Greta Thunberg has shown the world what she will do, and this book takes her fight into the slightly fantasized realm of children’s literature.

In Greta and the Giants, Greta’s forest home is threatened by the Giants, “huge, lumbering oafs” that are clear stand-ins for the oafish grown-ups of the real world. The Giants are cutting down trees, dirtying the air, and are too busy to care.

Greta calls for the Giants to stop and change their ways, and while she is not successful at first, she inspires a collective movement that includes folks representing a variety of identities. Led by their young female leader, they finally succeed in getting the Giants to listen. They learn to slow down, develop better relationships with the land and their communities, and cultivate a forest “more beautiful than they could ever have imagined.”

I am very into this book! Zoe Tucker’s writing creates an engaging plot that sticks to the spirit of Greta’s real-life story, and articulates the causes and effects of climate change in an accessible manner. Perisco’s illustrations are fun too, and give voice to marginalized voices who are heard little but bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change. I think this could fit in any unit on climate justice and activism for grades 2-5 (I’m planning on trying it out on my third graders in a couple months).

My only qualm with the book is that it lets some of the bad actors of climate change off the hook. At the moment when Greta finally gets the Giants’ attention, Tucker writes, “They were embarrassed and a little bit sad. You see, the Giants were so busy building, they didn’t see what they were doing to the forest or the animals who lived there.” And while many adults may be innocently ignorant about their environmental impact, there are plenty of others who are willfully so, and perfectly happy destroying the environment for personal gain. Some of those people are the most powerful in the world. Greta and the Giants does not quite seem to know what to do with this truth, and so it sidesteps it.

That being said, this book takes an issue that so many storytellers have fumbled with, and succeeds admirably. Greta spoke up for climate justice, and this book just might inspire you and your kiddos to do so too.