Planet Patrol

The Planet Patrol is, apparently, a real organisation – a network of young folk who – er – network by means of a website to exchange ideas about engaging positively with climate change. After a brief and entirely lucid explanation of global warming, we meet various Patrol members and their ideas set against different symptoms of greenhouse gassery. So Clara, from France, now walks to school and has persuaded her dad to use a horse and cart instead of a van. ‘Thanks, Clara,’ say some baby owls whose globally warmed survival is threatened by increasingly wet summers. Then Korean Kim (no, not that one) saves electricity and is thanked by polar bears, Max digs a pond in England to the eternal gratitude of his frogs whose legs are now safe from Clara’s attentions, and, in India, Ali encourages a community wind turbine which benefits the increasingly threatened local tigers. And there are others.

As with their other publications, the Manningströms (you can’t see the join) have produced a complete stand-alone work; a simple idea, clearly and attractively described in words and pictures that are a perfect match. The result is a thoroughly enjoyable encouragement towards individual action contributing to cooperative change within a book with a wide readership range and not an atom of do-goodery anywhere. Sign up and get a free Planet Patrol badge – you know it makes sense.