Think Like a Forest

How to parent in a climate emergency? Through a series of inspiring letters written to his daughters, climate activist and writer Ben Rawlence finds new ways to open conversations and navigate the uncertainty of our changing times together.

"Beautiful and thought-provoking" — Cal Flyn

"A delightful and important book. Every parent should read this" — Merlin Hanbury-Tenison

How do we raise children in a climate emergency?

What should we teach them - and what kind of future are we preparing them for?

Ben Rawlence began writing to his eldest daughter before she was born, trying to understand what it means to bring a child into a world facing ecological breakdown. Over the next twelve years, these letters - written to his two daughters as they grow - chart one father's attempt to live with the central contradiction of our age: raising children within a system that threatens all life, including our own.

By turns moving and funny, and always bracingly honest, Think Like a Forest explores love, fear and responsibility in perilous times. Rawlence finds the answers might lie in learning to see the world again through the eyes of a child so that we may embrace interdependence and regain our place in nature. To think like a forest, he shows us, may be the key to how we parent, how we live, and even whether we have a future on our planet at all.

"A gift, not just for the author's daughters, but for all of us who want to replace ecocide anxiety with the glimmerings of a better future" — Sophy Roberts

"A thoughtful, tender way to make a map of new and frightening territory" — Jay Griffiths