The Carbon Diaries 2015
Starred Review. Grade 8 Up—Laura Brown's diary of 2015 charts the first year of carbon rationing in Great Britain. The global climate has declined so precipitously that the country has made the unilateral decision to cut its carbon emissions by 60 percent. Everyone is issued a card that tracks their allowable use of carbon for the year. This limits utility usage, travel, and purchase of anything that has been transported over a distance, including food. Laura has to cope with limits to hygiene, cell phone use, and practice time with her band and listen to lectures on reducing energy consumption. Her father's job as Head of Travel and Tourism at a local college is eliminated. Freezing weather is followed by hot drought and flooding to finish off the year. Her family initially reacts badly to the strains—her parents fight, her dad starts drinking but then tries his hand at home agriculture, her mom joins the Women Moving Forward club, and her sister, Kim, disappears for days at a time and almost dies when a cholera epidemic hits the city. The book refers to itself as an eco-thriller but it doesn't present the usual over-the-top characters and hardly believable events of so many books in that genre. It works so well because of all the normal craziness of life that has nothing to do with the environmental disaster. The family crisis, the colorful supportive neighbors, the crush on the cute boy next door, and the triumphs of Laura's band lend the story verisimilitude that will give it appeal far beyond the usual thriller for doom-and-gloom junkies.—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WICopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.