Green Rising

Longlisted for the Yoto Carnegie Medal 2023

Featured in a climate exhibition at Oxford’s The Story Museum

Finalist of the Hollywood Climate Summit 2022 Writing Climate Pitchfest for Film and TV

Yale Climate Connections’ Summer Reading Pick

Winner of the Trinity Schools Book Awards 2023

Shortlisted for the Southern Schools Book Awards 2022

Shortlisted for the Iris Award 2023

Longlisted for the Warwickshire TEEN Book Award 2022

“A smart, brilliantly realised call to arms.” – The Guardian

“A terrifically bold and original take on climate fiction” – The Bookseller

On the face of it, the three have very little in common. Yet when Hester and Theo join Gabrielle and legions of other teenagers around the world in developing the strange new “Greenfingers” power, it becomes clear that to use their ability for good, they’ll need to learn to work together. But in a time of widespread corruption and greed, there are plenty of profit-hungry organizations who want to use the Greenfingers for their own ends. And not everyone would like to see the Earth saved…

As they navigate first love and family expectations, can the three teenagers pull off the ultimate heist and bring about a green rising?

A Young Adult climate change thriller about nature, geoengineering and civil disobedience in the face of overwhelming corporate negligence. This is THE POWER meets GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE and THE MARTIAN.

Word count: 82,000 Ages 13+

Available in Turkish

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Book Club Discussion Guide

Mr B Tillbrook, librarian at Invicta Grammar School, has prepared some teaching resources for students reading Green Rising in Year 7 (age 11-12): download the Guided Reading booklet (includes: about the author, things to think about when reading, extract from the novel, challenge activity, extension tasks, letter from the author, further reading) [PDF download] and Scheme of Work (guidance for teachers) [Word Document download]

Cecile Semple at Ardingly College has also prepared some teaching resources on non-violent civil disobedience, climate activism and the characters of Green Rising, which she has agreed to share – download parts one, two and three.

From the beginning of my writing career, I’ve wanted to write about climate change – but I could never find a “way in”. It’s such a huge, complex topic that I didn’t know how to tackle it in a way that felt uplifting. My writing is primarily character and story-focused. It’s funny and romantic. That tone felt impossible to capture in a book about climate change, a topic that is discomforting at best and soul-destroying/terrifying at worst. – read my essay, Positivity in the apocalypse: can a climate fiction novel be uplifting?

Read my conversation with my editor about the writing process

Academic Citations of Green Rising:

The Dark Matter of Children’s ‘Fantastika’ Literature by Chloe Germaine

We all die at the end: Storytelling in the climate apocalypse by Sam Haddow

Climate Fiction: Youth as Catalysts of Change by Michaela Bouzková

One standout example of climate fiction, this thesis will be focusing on the most, that resonates with both the young and the young-at-heart is Green Rising (2021) by Lauren James, because not only it explores the dire consequences of global warming but also offers a vision of hope, showing how young people, those most impacted by the changes happening today, can lead the charge in creating solutions.

Climate fiction has the ability to translate complex environmental issues into compelling, human-centered stories, which can resonate better with the audience, especially the younger readers, who sometimes may not fully understand the scientific researches regarding these issues. That is why, the importance of cli-fi is much bigger than can be expected. Green Rising is particularly effective in this regard, using its fictional framework to illustrate the real-world importance of climate action. As the world faces increasing environmental degradation, youth-led movements like Fridays for Future have shown that the younger generation is not only most affected by climate change but also the most vocal in demanding change. Through books like Green Rising, young people can see themselves as important individuals with the power to shape the future through collective action, imagination, and determination.

Green Rising is about politics, standing up for what individuals believe in and taking direct action. This fiction was inspired by movements like Extinction Rebellion, a movement that aims to mobilise large numbers of people, to work with other climate and environmental groups, achieve a wide spectrum of support across society, and to persuade governments to act justly on the climate and ecological emergency. With this in mind, Lauren James presents a world where plants have evolved to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, providing a way to reverse the damage of climate change. This premise, while fictional, taps into the real world possibilities of bioengineering and reforestation as means of mitigating climate damage.
The story also presents situations similar to the present world, such as the oil drilling rigs in the North Sea, which contribute greatly to the water pollution as the following example illustrates:
‘The energy company had built a new oil drilling rig right in the middle of the North Sea where Theo’s dad normally fished. The hulking orange platform damned bilge water into the ocean as they proceeded oil, covering the seabed in chemicals and dirty sediment.’

‘Do I Dare to Leave the Universe Alone? Environmental Crisis, Narrative Identity, and Collective Agency in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction‘

Narrative identity, or the construction of a coherent life story to shape a sense of self, is a crucial aspect of identity formation. Narrative identity is impacted by the prevailing cultural narratives during the period of adolescence. This article, drawing on theory from literary studies and sociology, explores the impact of cultural narratives of environmental crisis and destruction on an emerging narrative identity in adolescents as represented in young adult literature. The selected novels—Dry by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman, Green Rising by Lauren James, and Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick—examine their protagonists’ agency and transformational potential. They foreground collective agency and human–nonhuman assemblages as possible responses to environmental crisis. Although two novels (Dry, Green Rising) affirm that narratives of environmental destruction engage the transformational potential of adolescents for society, the third novel (Snowflake, AZ) complicates this image and questions whether the impact of narratives of environmental crisis could be too overwhelming for adolescents to bear. The article concludes that the young adolescent protagonists adapt their narrative identity in response to environmental destruction.

Countering eco-anxiety through young adult climate fiction: Lauren James’s Green Rising by Chiara Xausa

This paper will propose a close reading of Lauren James’s recent YA novel Green Rising (2021), a timing story centered around a climate-change activist (Gabrielle), who develops the ability to grow plants from her skin; her story is entangled with that of other teenagers around the world who develop this strange new “Greenfingers” power. My analysis will explore how emotions (personal experiences) and affects (the forces that precede, produce, and inform such experiences) function in environmentally oriented texts for young adults. I will use affective ecocriticism to evaluate the literary structures and devices through which such narratives convey environmental understanding and become engines of affect, stressing that emotional responses are evoked as readers empathize with characters, while also inhabiting emotionally the storyworlds that surround such characters. A particular attention will be devoted to the entanglement between negative/painful emotions (e.g. ecogrief, climate anxiety, solastalgia) and positive emotions (empathy towards victims of environmental injustice and towards the nonhuman, hope that can emerge from grassroot activism, the spontaneous collectives and moments of solidarity that can arise out of disasters [Solnit 2009], and altruistic emotions that can activate trajectories of change). Contending that pedagogy does not have to follow an arc of hope in order to prevent despair (Ray 2020), I will consider the genre of YA dystopia as privileged site of investigation to explore the importance of cultivating both positive and negative emotions, as it deals with dark times but maintains the potential to inspire the ‘social dreaming’ that is central to utopia, challenging and disturbing young readers (Baccolini 2019). The overall aim of this paper is to investigate the role of YA cli-fi in helping young readers to cope with the negative emotions emerging in the Anthropocene, and to turn climate anxiety into critical thinking.

The novel Green Rising by Lauren James as diadactic climate fiction by Dejan J. DURIĆ (in Croatian)

The paper examines Lauren James’ novel Green Rising (2021) through the genre prism of climate fiction intended for children and young people, especially its variant – didactic cli-fi. In this way, the adventure plot is intertwined with social activism and the educational and upbringing function of raising awareness of anthropogenic influences on the escalation of climate change and the necessity of transforming social consciousness. The novel, like most climate fiction, is based on recent scientific indicators, and at the same time combines various genre strategies (science fiction, adventure novel, romance novel) with currently particularly topical superhero narratives, in order to express the necessity of ecological activism and the social struggle against aggressive corporatism and capitalism, which prioritize money over the benefits of the planet and life on it.

“At once fantastical and relatable. Author Wren James seamlessly weaves real consequences of climate change into the narrative, making the story’s stakes feel all too real. And James’ depiction of complicated family dynamics is just as hard-hitting; even amid ecological disaster, Hester, Gabrielle and Theo still struggle with what their loved ones expect from them.” – Booktrib

“This has the makings of a modern eco-classic with its scathing attack on the 1% who are responsible for the most pollution on earth for corporate reasons, but also empowers with reminders of the impact of grassroots protest.” – Lilyfae

“Green Rising is a whip-smart tale that asks big, bold questions of how we can save the planet, with or without Greenfinger magic. Beautiful imagery, a strong scientific underpinning and well-rounded characters. A must-read for teens today.” ― Laura Lam, Sunday Times bestselling author of Goldilocks and Seven Devils

“Unapologetically political . . . A terrific example of how to explore environmental issues in playful, unusual ways.” – The Irish Times

“Frighteningly clever and richly imagined, Green Rising is a book that combines lush, compulsive storytelling with an urgent message, and everyone who reads it will be stirred by its call to arms. I loved it.” ― Laura Wood, author of A Sky Painted Gold

“Smart and sharp and witty and fun, with a magic system that springs perfectly from current events and winds perfectly around some really big real-world themes – but manages to avoid being didactic.” – Stephanie Burgis, author of The Raven Heir

Dear Reader,

Green Rising is about politics, standing up for what you believe in and taking direct action. Inspired by movements like Extinction Rebellion, I wanted to write about teenage activists who have the power to make real, decisive change in the climate crisis. It’s something which makes us all feel incredibly helpless, and climate fiction is often a depressing, dystopian look at our doomed future. I wanted to write a more optimistic, hopeful path forward to a better world, with clear instructions about what we should be doing next to fix the planet.

I read Chemistry and Physics at university, so I’ve been studying the science of climate change for many years. It’s incredibly frustrating that I was taught the science of the greenhouse effect and the proposed solutions over a decade ago, and yet we’re still no further along in fixing it. For this book, I did a lot of research into cutting-edge climate technology, including geoengineering and solar seeding. People tend to bury their head in the sand about climate change, because it often feels so hopeless. But it’s important that we’re all aware of the politics and ethics of climate solutions, because they’re going to determine the course of the next hundred years on Earth.

So many of the climate fiction books I read focus on the effect that individuals can have on the planet, with the message that we all need to be more responsible, greener consumers. I wanted to look at how industry and businesses are causing pollution, to make it clear to my young, scared readers that it’s not their responsibility to fix climate change. No amount of careful consumption can fix an industry-wide problem.

While writing the novel, I founded the Climate Fiction Writers League (http://climate-fiction.org/ ), an organisation of over a hundred climate writers. I run a biweekly newsletter of essays about climate writing, in order to encourage readers to take action. While magic is fantastical, the ability of humans to fix the climate emergency is not. It will take money, sacrifice and time, but we can create a better world, just like Theo and Hester wish to do. This has to start with policy changes, immediately.

The carbon emissions responsible for climate change are largely caused by industry, and can only be reduced through government action. However, if you’d like to make lifestyle changes to help limit your individual emissions, here are the most effective changes you can make. Some of these will take many decades to achieve, but long-term societal changes are the only way we can tackle this problem.

•             Vote in all political elections you are able to, and make sure your representatives are aware that your vote is based on their climate policy views

•             Replace garden lawns with wildflower meadows

•             Switch to LED lightbulbs

•             Try to avoid flying, and offset your carbon footprint where you can

•             Talk to your company about their actions to combat climate change, such as savings and pensions schemes which could be invested in companies contributing to climate change

•             Avoid eating beef, and transition to dairy alternatives

•             Buy in-season food, grown locally (avoiding hot-house produce grown out of season)

•             Change to a renewable energy utility supplier

•             Buy electric cars – but only once your current car is absolutely unable to be fixed. Keep current cars on the road for as long as possible, to keep manufacturing emissions low

•             Install solar panels or solar roof tiles

•             Air dry clothing instead of tumble drying

•             Avoid disposable, cheap fashion and invest in long-term, quality pieces that can be worn for many years

And, of course, plant trees wherever you can. They truly are the lungs of our planet. Depleted forests, savannahs, peatlands, mangroves and wetlands have the ability to grow back quickly, but we need to give them the opportunity to do that. 

I really hope you enjoy Green Rising – and it makes you feel a little less powerless in the fight to save Earth.

Wren

“In this love song to our planet, Green Rising effortlessly mixes magic and science with strong, likeable characters and a smart plot. But most of all, this book provides the clearest explanation yet as to what’s caused climate change, and more importantly, what we can do to prevent it.” – Hannah Gold, author of The Last Bear

“Inventive, gripping, and ultimately hopeful, Green Rising is a fantastic tale bursting with a diverse range of intrepid teenagers, coming-of-age themes, charming romances and, underpinning it all, a reminder of the desperate need to tackle climate change.” – BookTrust

Meet the Characters

Hester Daleport, age 18, is the heir to Dalex Energy, one of the world’s largest oil companies. She’s privately tutored to prepare for her role as CEO when her dad retires. A business-savvy Texas girl, she doesn’t have many friends her own age – but she loves to bake, has an impressive stock portfolio and collection of business blazers.

Theodore Carthew, age 17, is the English son of a family of fisherman. He’s dyslexic, loves video games, and works at the local docks unloading shipping containers after school, when he’s not helping out on his dad’s boat. He makes really bad puns, and he absolutely hates Dalex Energy, whose oil rig is destroying his family’s livelihood.

Gabrielle Ventura is the first person to grow plants in Green Rising, she’s a dedicated climate activist, and she’s not afraid to break the law to do what she believes is right. She’s aro-ace, an excellent fighter, and deeply opinionated. Not going to lie, Hester and Theo are a little bit afraid of her.  

Edgar Warren is a billionaire trying to start a colony on Mars. He’s dorky and tech-savvy, and he’s interested in using the Greenfingers powers in space.

Anthony Daleport is Hester’s dad, and the CEO of Dalex Energy. He’s training up Hester to replace him one day. He’s a keen golfer, and meticulously health-focussed, drinking vitamin-packed protein shakes constantly.