St. Paul Public Libraries: Let's talk about climate change

How do you deal with what can be a touchy topic? Talk about it.

That’s what St. Paul Public Libraries hopes will happen with its Read Brave program.

My MPR News colleague and Climate Cast producer Megan Burks and I produced this story for Climate Cast this week. But I wanted to get this in Updraft where a few more of you will see what the program is about.

Here’s are some selected reads from the project:

Picture Book

“Mama Miti: Wangari Maathai and the Trees of Kenya” by Donna Jo Napoli and Kadir Nelson

“This is a great book for young children. It is the story of Wangarĩ Muta Maathai, who [was] a real-life Kenyan activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner. And Maathai did her work by helping women solve problems like hunger and dirty water by offering up different kinds of trees that they can plant. And one by one they created a movement in Kenya,” Penkert said. “And it really makes you, one, want to go out and plant a tree, and two, really think about trees and all of the different ways they benefit us.”

Middle Grades

“Bayou Magic” by Jewell Parker Rhodes

“This is a fictional story set in the deep south, and it’s a community facing an environmental challenge,” Penkert said. “There’s a really interesting interplay here between [generations] and how can young people lead? In this case it’s a young girl who says, ‘I want to be a hero,’ and what does that mean, and what can she learn from her grandmother?”

Young Adult

“The Marrow Thieves” by Cherie Dimaline

The publish describes this science fiction book as a story set “in a future world ravaged by global warming, [where] people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's indigenous population — and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world.”

Penkert said the book’s complexity offers a lot to talk about, and recommended checking it out as an audio book.

“Hearing this story told to you adds another layer to the experience,” Penkert said, adding that St. Paul libraries have unlimited copies of the audio book to check out.

Author Cherie Dimaline is scheduled to visit St. Paul March 11-13.

Adult

“Rising: Dispatches From the New American Shore” by Elizabeth A. Rush

“This book is set on the coasts, and so I went into not sure if this would feel relevant to a Minnesotan,” Penkert said. “She goes to Staten Island, to Miami, to the deep south and asks real people, not how will climate change impact them in the future, how has it already impacted them? And you really get to know individuals in communities where they are facing real questions about relocation and, when are we going to have to decide to give our neighborhood back to the land?”

“The End of Ice” by Dahr Jamail

“This is a book where you get to travel around the world with the author. So he takes you to the mountains in Alaska, to the Amazon rain forest, to the coral reefs,” Penkert said. “He talks to the people who are living there and the scientists who are working there, and what are they seeing?”

Author Dahr Jamail is scheduled to visit St. Paul on April 9.