The Valley Sea, a vast inundated area of Central California, imagined in the speculative novel The Middle of a Wish (January 2021), moves closer to reality.  

“A Cataclysmic Flood is Coming for California”

The newest in the series from Lightportbooks.org

A children’s picture book for ages 3 – 9, narrated by a friendly bee who flies around the world to visit 11 autumn festivals on 6 continents. The autumn celebrations are Yam Festival, Mabon, Sukkot, Karma, Midautumn Festival, Chuseok, Apple and Grape Harvest Festival, Pawkar Raymi, Green Corn Ceremony, and Thanksgiving.  

There are recipes and meal suggestions with harvest foods, as well as activities, a map of the world, a pronunciation guide, a glossary, and 14 color illustrations. Each illustration features the bee who describes celebrations of autumn harvests as well as the role of pollinators in growing food.  

38 pages.  Retail: $13.95.  55% discount to booksellers.

Reviews of Lightport Books’ children’s books:

“It’s a heart-warming thing to show a child a book that celebrates people of the world…”.       Port Arthur News, Texas

“Your children would surely enjoy this beautiful, informative book…” Lebanon Daily Record, Missouri

“Es un libro especialmente importante en un tiempo donde estamos mas pendientes de las diferentes culturas alrededor del mundo.” El Hispano News, Albuquerque New Mexico

“A valuable resource for starting children on the path to exploring global diversity.” Ruby Takanishi, former president of the Foundation for Child Development, New York City

    

   Ice Shelf Collapses in East Antarctica

    The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/climate/east-antarctica-ice-shelf-collapse.html Scientists say a period of unusual weather, combined with record-low sea ice, led to the disintegration of the Conger ice shelf.  (3/25/22)

    “The Middle of a Wish”, a novel from Lightport Books, imagines the consequences of our current world policies and the future of humans on Earth.  https://www.amazon.com/Middle-Wish-Heather-Conrad/dp/0971242585

Bicycling with Butterflies, a fascinating book by Sara Dykman, is an account of her 9-month solo bicycle trip following the annual Monarch butterfly migration over 10,000 miles. Especially impressive is her courageous, adventuring spirit, and what an excellent athlete she must be to pedal dozens of miles a day in so many terrains on a bicycle with 70 pounds of equipment strapped to it.  Her many interesting encounters on her journey also amaze.  What may be most impressive and valuable about her book is her eloquence in making the case for respecting the natural world. She articulates things others have said, but with such a simple and profound common sense it’s eye-opening.  “Finding Refuge” and “Hope in the Corn” are just two of the chapters with exceptional gems of wisdom.  This book is both an engaging and a healing read.

Andrew Rublev, 24 year-old Russian tennis star: “In these moments you realize that my match is not important… how it affects me…You realize how important it is to have peace in the world and to respect each other no matter what and to be united…. We should take care of our earth and of each other. This is the most important thing.”

As said in the New York Times today by David Brooks “….authoritarians tell a simple story about how to restore order — it comes from cultural homogeneity [emphasis mine] and the iron fist of the strongman.” This is one of the reasons why diversity matters.

A war waged at the will of a “strongman” is facilitated by those countrymen who choose national identity over diversity and humanism. The unbearable suffering of families and children caused by war is facilitated when empathy is not present, and cultural identity is valued above the well-being of others.       

On this regressive, sad day for the world, one hope going forward is to cultivate diversity, among people and species and all the wondrous life Earth has to offer.  

Biodiversity for a Livable Climate https://bio4climate.org offers a stunning array of new programs and events to revive living systems on Earth.

The Middle of a Wish, a new novel from Lightport books, follows a band of climate refugees leaving “The Westlands” after sea level rise and wildfire have made large areas uninhabitable.  The novel is set in the future, a future that is arriving sooner than expected.

From the New York Times 8/27/21:

“Earlier this month, federal officials declared an emergency water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time…. Americans are about to face all sorts of difficult choices about how and where to live as the climate continues to heat up. States will be forced to choose which coastlines to abandon as sea levels rise, which wildfire-prone suburbs to retreat from, and which small towns cannot afford new infrastructure to protect against floods or heat. What to do in the parts of the country that are losing their essential supply of water may turn out to be the first among those choices.” — Abrahm Lustgarten. Mr. Lustgarten is an environmental reporter for ProPublica. His reporting about the causes of water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

The Middle of a Wish is available as an ebook.

From the New York Times 5/26/21: “Even Amid a Pandemic, More Than 40 Million People Fled Their Homes. Storms, floods, wildfires and to a lesser degree, conflict, uprooted millions globally in 2020 — the largest human displacement in more than a decade.”

It’s likely there will be more climate refugees in the western United States this year as one of the worst droughts on record continues.

How will we handle the enormous, ongoing and increasing problem of displaced peoples and climate migrants? This is the central question of Lightport Books new release, “In the Middle of a Wish.”