A brave little girl stands up to climate change to save her farm
by Laura Montes and Jessica Eise, illustrated by Vanessa Bernal, translated by Carrie Abbas Estrada
About the book…
Flora, a brave and curious 11-year-old, loves trekking through her coffee farm in Colombia. She likes to play, learn, and marvel at nature. But one day her life changes when she realizes that everything she loves is in danger. She embarks on a magical adventure to learn about and save her farm from climate change. After all, if she doesn’t do it, who will?
Together with her best friend, Marco, and her dog, Pancho, they follow her Grandma Aurora on a discovery of new worlds, as she teaches them an important lesson: even the smallest person can change the world.
Education and outreach on climate change
This book is part of an outreach campaign conducted by Clima y Café, a project that raises awareness for and supports climate change adaptation, particularly in the Colombian coffee growing region. In order to reach rural populations with climate change adaptation content, our team wrote, produced and distributed this children’s book for rural schools in the coffee-growing region of Colombia. It targets 10 – 13-year-olds, but is appropriate for readers of many ages. We printed 1,000 copies and distributed them to three municipalities in Colombia for their rural schools (Santuario, Pereira, Santa Rosa de Cabal). The book is now available online in Spanish and English. It is being reprinted and distributed to more rural schools as ongoing funding allows.
Sample content
“Why do people produce so much carbon dioxide if it’s bad?” asked Flora. “Because they didn’t understand it in the beginning – they didn’t know it was going to happen either. But later, when they realized it, they didn’t want to change. Some people didn’t want to change because they had gotten used to doing things a certain way. Others because they made money, and only thought about themselves. Some were afraid to admit what they had done. And then there were certain people who just didn’t understand.”
“I don’t like this,” Flora said, feeling frustrated. “I want everything to be perfect, to go back to the way it was!” Her grandmother looked at her. “Sometimes we have to make mistakes to learn how to be better. Don’t look back, always move forward. It is easy to want to place blame and get angry, but we don’t want to take the easy path, do we? We want to take the right path.”
Read more about Flora and her adventures.
Purchase here
Dr. Jessica Eise 