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Climate change is our reality, our new normal. Earth’s youngest readers will never know a world without it. Yet the dearth of climate change representation in kid lit reveals that many book creators are reluctant to engage with the topic. Perhaps we worry we’re not expert enough, or we decide to leave it to books about the climate. But avoiding the topic risks avoiding reality. How can children’s book creators consistently represent climate reality in our work?

Last year, I read a story from the Los Angeles Times and NPR about a test called the Climate Reality Check (CRC), created by the nonprofit Good Energy and Colby College students. The CRC was inspired by the Bechdel-Wallace Test—which measures gender representation in film—to “evaluate whether our climate reality is being represented in films, TV shows, and other narratives.” It can apply “to any story set on Earth, which takes place now, in the recent past, or in the future.”

To pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test, a movie must

• have two women in it

• who talk to each other

• about something other than a man.

To pass the CRC, a story must demonstrate that

• climate change exists

• and a character knows it.

I reached out to Good Energy and asked for guidance on how children’s book creators might use the CRC. Bruno Olmedo Quiroga, director of strategy, who co-led the development of the test, offered these suggestions, with examples from film and TV:

1. Describe weather events as “unprecedented.” A character might say:

• “It never rains like this in my town. This is new.”

• “Mom says it used to be colder here. Things have changed.”

• “I was so happy to see butterflies today. They used to be common in New York, but now they’re a special sight.”

For example, in the film Beasts of the Southern Wild, a character talks about how the ice caps will melt and sea levels will rise without mentioning “climate change” or “global warming.” This communicates awareness of the climate crisis without using the specific words.

2. Show background acknowledgments of climate change:

• graffiti on a wall

• a headline of a news article

• a mural on the wall of the school

For example, the show Abbot Elementary has teachers watching a TV weatherman talk about climate change. But they’re interested in his good looks, not his message.

3. Show weather and other climate impacts that can be tied to climate change:

• Portray an actual climate impact in the background without acknowledging climate change and the story would still pass part 1 of the CRC.

For example, the Academy Award–winning film Parasite shows extreme flooding impacting the protagonist’s home, a basement apartment. While the film never directly connects it to climate change, it is well known that in South Korea, unprecedented floods are occurring more often. This movie passes part 1 of the CRC (climate change exists), but not part 2 (and a character knows it).

The CRC is simple, and finding ways to pass the test can be creatively challenging and satisfying, even fun. (Here is how the Barbie movie passed.)

Eager to use the test in my own work, I applied it to my forthcoming chapter book Tove Under the Tree (illustrated by Julie Benbassat, Candlewick, 2025), which is low fantasy set in the present. When an arborist cuts down an old, dead tree, she says: “The hotter temps are tough on old trees.” This line shows that (1) climate change exists (unprecedented temperatures) and (2) a character knows.

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe says, “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change is to talk about it.”

And write about it and illustrate it. The power of the CRC will lie in its cumulative effect. No single creator or story can normalize our reality. Like fighting climate change itself, we must do it together.

Larissa Theule is the author of fiction and nonfiction books for kids, including Kafka and the Doll, A Way with Wild Things, and the “Material Marvels” series.