DRAWN TO CHANGE THE WORLD GRAPHIC NOVEL COLLECTION

Young environmental activists around the world are making a difference.

An introduction offers an overview of the climate change crisis. The short, stirring comics that follow each use four pages of comic book panels to describe the subject’s life and concerns. (Greta Thunberg gets six, perhaps for her outsized presence as the instigator of Fridays for Future, the model for what many of these young people are doing in their own countries.) Two more pages recount awards and current activities. The young people range remarkably, from Autumn Peltier, an Anishinaabe activist who has campaigned for clean water in Canada, to Dara McAnulty, working for raptor conservation in Ireland. Two of the subjects have demonstrated in countries where the act of environmental protest itself is severely limited: Russia and China. Several young activists described identify as queer; Thunberg and McAnulty are autistic; Daphne Frias, a Latina American who has worked to eliminate single-use plastics from her college dining hall, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. The comics were created by different cartoonists whose backgrounds, styles, and even palettes are equally wide-ranging. Overall, these are heartening examples of young people taking action against what is probably the most important issue in all our lives; readers will emerge compelled to make a difference themselves.

An impressive introduction to an admirable group.