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Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis Paperback – March 17, 2020
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When climate activist Greta Thunberg was eleven, her parents Malena and Svante, and her little sister Beata, were facing a crisis in their own home. Greta had stopped eating and speaking, and her mother and father had reconfigured their lives to care for her. Desperate and searching for answers, her parents discovered what was at the heart of Greta’s distress: her imperiled future on a rapidly heating planet.
Steered by Greta’s determination to understand the truth and generate change, they began to see the deep connections between their own suffering and the planet’s. Written by a remarkable family and told through the voice of an iconoclastic mother, Our House Is on Fire is the story of how they fought their problems at home by taking global action. And it is the story of how Greta decided to go on strike from school, igniting a worldwide rebellion.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Books
- Publication dateMarch 17, 2020
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
- ISBN-100143133578
- ISBN-13978-0143133575
- Lexile measure950L
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Greta Thunberg, on the other hand, seems to be a girl after my own heart. I truly believe that neurodivergent people will save the world, and make it a more equitable place, and Greta is living proof of that. Her family has so beautifully tied the exploitation and abuse of the environment with all other forms of exploitation and abuse, and it is beautiful to see. Greta is the conscience our world needs, and she even changed my mind on a few issues. Because of her, I have significantly reduced the meat in my diet, and the amount I drive my car. Thanks, Greta.
It is only in the last chapters that Greta's mother, a famous opera singer, tells the story of Greta coming out of her Asperger shell and through a simple act of staying out of school for three weeks and sitting in front of the Swedish Parliament, galvanizing students all over the world to take action to save the planet from further climate chaos.
Other books chronicle Greta's remarkable travels all over Europe and the U.S. to the United Nations to call out leaders of the world's countries on their lack of work to stop the erosion of our planet.
This is an excellent book!!!!
Well done!!!
Top reviews from other countries
It is a sad indictment of modern western society when we fail to cater for the vulnerable to such an extent that they (Greta) is reduced to anorexia and selective mutism. The tale relayed is just awful, where the callousness and bullying is not limited to pupils but also by staff. She is lucky that she has parents who have found the time to battle for their children. It highlights the issue of late diagnosis of autism in girls and young women and the lifelong problems it can lead to if help isn’t available. When Greta is finally diagnosed the private school puts profit before service and fails her (and her sister) repeatedly.
Parts of this book made me weep openly.
This book clearly demonstrates that autism can be a condition (rather than a disorder) as it allows Greta a clarity that neurotypicals so obviously lack at times and cut through all the fluff and focus on the key issues: namely the climate crisis that the world is persistently failing to treat as a crisis. It also allows her to bat off national and international politicians ‘abuse’ (hey, she’s been bullied must of her life, you all just stay classy) and highlight their own hypocrisy.
That a such a small girl can have such a significant impact actually gives me some hope. And inspiration.
This should be a national ciriculum text book.
If you are negative about Greta and climate change, etc. this book won't sway you in any way as it's really down to how her family came together to raise the kids from the beginning, the health issues, etc. The school strike and all that resulting fame came much later and seems to have just been added to the story as an after-thought. Which, perhaps, is great because the book doesn't appear swayed by the celebrity stuff.
The writing is very quirky - perhaps the way it was translated from Swedish - which I found refreshing but a bit hard to follow occasionally. However, I wouldn't change a thing.
It then establishes a link to modern society and its (similar) woes, a critique of unfettered consumerism especially in the rich Western world, and how politicians and mass media are ignoring science's pleas. This middle part summarizes the main points of the climate movement (debunking common myths like that technology will save us without affecting individual lifes much) and argues that radical system change is necessary to stop it.
The final third of the book returns to the family and how Greta overcomes her struggles by getting involved and becoming accepted in the ecological community (supported by her family, also through actions such as not flying any longer), culminating in the story of her (now famous) school strike for climate, starting on 20 August 2018.
The book adds a rich, deeply personal back story to the media reporting, repeats all the arguments, and gives hope and encouragement to join the movement.






