Higher Ground by Tull Suwannakit

You will need to set aside some time to read this intriguing book. The story begins with an enormous flood. Two children and their grandmother (and pet rabbit) are left stranded. No one is coming to help but the grandmother has years of wisdom and she knows how to use their scarce supplies to survive. She shows the children how to plant seeds to grow food, how to gather water, build a shelter, how to catch and prepare fish, how to use fire for cooking and warmth and most of all she gives the children hope. For nearly 200 days the group survive but the grandmother is growing frail. We watch the seasons change and we see their daily activities through a series of wordless spreads. Eventually the children decide to build a raft. This is the part that broke my heart - the children set off to find other people and they leave their grandmother behind. She tells the children she cannot make the journey, she needs to stay behind and tend their garden but they should know she will always be with them in their hearts.

I expect to see this book listed for many 2026 awards - and it is sure to be a CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) notable in the Younger Readers category. The presentation of this book is just beautiful - hardcover and with a very appealing size and book design. 

Publisher blurb: After a great flood swallows their city, a wise grandmother, her two grandchildren, and their pet rabbit find themselves stranded on the only safe place left—the rooftop of their home. With nothing but their small garden and a handful of supplies, they must learn to survive in a world where the familiar streets have turned to endless water. Days turn into weeks, and weeks into months, as they face hunger, storms, and the uncertainty of what lies beyond the horizon. But through each hardship, the grandmother shares words of wisdom, teaching her grandchildren the power of resilience, kindness, and hope. As their garden grows, so too does their belief that even in the darkest times, life finds a way forward. Higher Ground serves as both a warning and a call to action for future generations, urging readers to honor and protect the environment before it’s too late. Told through beautifully illustrated panels, this dystopian middle-grade graphic novel is a powerful meditation on survival, family, and the delicate balance between humanity and nature.

Here are some brief teachers notes from the publisher. 

It is my hope that Higher Ground will encourage young readers to reflect on their own connections to nature, the importance of family values, and the fragile world around them. In a world that is constantly changing, these qualities are more important than ever. Perhaps the story’s central themes of hope, growth and resilience, could offer readers a meaningful outlook to a more empathetic world we live in. Tull Suwannakit (Federation of Children's Book Groups)

I am not a fan of endorsements (as you may know) but there are some interesting names here:

Image source: Tull Suwannakit

Tull Suwannakit talks about his work here. 

Higher Ground is highly visual, with 14 short chapters, and plenty of light and shade in both story and pictures, making it difficult to ascribe to an ideal reader. It is pitched for ages 5+, but this is the sort of immersive, cross-genre, layered storytelling that will captivate readers of many ages, in many different ways. Storylinks

Here is a detailed and insightful interview with Joy Lawn at Paperbark Words. Here is a review from The Bottom Shelf. 

Embracing such themes as home, belonging, loss, grief, refugees, self-sufficiency and the consequences of climate change, this is a book that deserves to be widely read at home and in classrooms. Red Reading Hub

In this age of global warming and climate change books there are many books now that explore the consequences of catastrophic flooding. 

Please try to find this book to read after (or before) High Ground. 

Water, Water

And for older readers I highly recommend this book:

Across the Risen Sea

Other books I have talked about here by Tull Suwannakit:

Happy Hoppy Home

Heart and Soul

Plague by Jackie French illustrated by Bruce Whatley

"Grass and wheat-lands spread to the horizon, and so did we, with too few ibis to control us. We could rage across the land. We ate the grass, the leaves, the wheat ... "

My first teaching appointment was to a farming community and over the years I lived there, we had a mouse plague and a grasshopper or locust plague. To counteract the impact of insects on crops the farmers used aerial spraying. One of the teachers in my school had a dreadful, almost life threatening, reaction to these insecticides. She had to keep her home closed and limit her time outside and eventually she and her family had to leave the district.

In Plague, Jackie French begins with the before times when the original people of our land lived in harmony with the season, land and animals. The locust narrator explains:

"We were never too many. The world was balanced then."

BUT swamps were drained, land was cleared for farming and things went out of balance. Specifically the habitat for ibis was lost. Jackie French explains that a single ibis can eat 700 locusts in a day. With no ibis (they moved to our cities - see books below) and delicious crops on the new farms, the locusts thrived. 

The farmers fought back - using poison sprays but this also killed our bush birds who ate the locusts.

"Long ago, people knew how Country must be cherished."

A wonderful book to talk about the topic of nature in balance with older children is this one:

Sparrow Girl

Here are some teachers notes for Plague. Plague is the sixth book in this splendid series by Jackie French - Flood, Fire, Cyclone, Drought, Pandemic and Earthquake. And each of these books have simply perfect illustrations by Bruce Whatley. I highly recommend this series as an essential addition to every school library. 

Here are my comments about Earthquake:

This title has a debossed title and shaken letters in shades of brown like the land after an earthquake. This is a perfect way to introduce the topic of this book. Jackie French is a master storyteller. Every word in this text is chosen with great care. Jackie French uses precise and effective words and phrases so readers can feel, hear, and even smell the effects of an earthquake. It is a richly descriptive narrative. Examples of this are phrases like matchstick debris; ripped like paper; the shop floor quivered like the sea. The text describes the destruction caused by an earthquake but this is balanced when we read that, earthquakes have help shape the land. The notes are the back are factual and personal. This is an engaging text that most certainly will assist the reader to understand more about our world. The end papers show the power of a quake to bring down huge stone blocks. The sense of place is very strong especially with the reference to Meckering in Western Australia (1968) and Newcastle (1989). 

I am the Storm by Jane Yolen

I am the Storm by Jane Yolen and Heidi EY Stemple 

illustrated by Kristen and Kevin Howdeshell

"Nature is strong and powerful. But I am strong and powerful, too. ... And when the storm passes, as it always does, 

I am the calm too."

Let's begin the the word storm. In this book different family groups experience a hurricane, tornado, blizzard, and a forest fire.

"It's okay to be scared."

But each time, the family find safety, and each narrator, from different parts of America, finds something positive in both the experience and in the clearing up that needs to follow.

"I bought flowers to all the neighbours while the grown-ups swept the ashes and washed windows."

Publisher blurb: A tornado, a blizzard, a forest fire, and a hurricane are met, in turn, with resilience and awe in this depiction of nature's power and our own.  In the face of our shifting climate, young children everywhere are finding themselves subject to unfamiliar and often frightening extreme weather. Beloved author Jane Yolen and her daughter Heidi Stemple address four distinct weather emergencies (a tornado, a blizzard, a forest fire, and a hurricane) with warm family stories of finding the joy in preparedness and resilience. Their honest reassurance leaves readers with the message: nature is powerful, but you are powerful, too. Illustrated in rich environmental tones and featuring additional information about storms in the back, this book educates, comforts, and empowers young readers in stormy or sunny weather, and all the weather in between.

The best books, including picture books, teach me new words. In this one I discovered the word roiled. Roil: to (cause to) move quickly in a twisting circular movement. 

The teacher in this blog post used I am the Storm as a poetry writing stimulus. 

Illustrated in rich environmental tones and featuring additional information about storms in the back, this book educates, comforts, and empowers young readers in stormy or sunny weather, and all the weather in between. Brightly: Raise kids who love to read

A treasure full of  love, affirmation, and resiliency. Maria Marshall: The Picture Book Buzz

Child-centered, reassuring, and welcome. Kirkus Star review

Here in Australia this book is sadly VERY expensive ($35) so, while I would love to recommend it as a perfect library purchase, I guess that might not be possible. Perhaps you can make use of this video and you will also see the final pages which explain each of the storms. Here is an interview with Jane Yolen and her daughter Heidi. Jane Yolen is the author of over (huge cheer) 400 books!

I have seen a lot of really poor digital art in picture books recently but in this book it is wonderful. The illustrators explain: "The art is sketched in pencil and the finishes are rendered in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet." My favourite page is near the end where the boy looks across a beach towards a lighthouse (signalling hope). 

From the video Project Recovery Iowa

Here are two other books illustrated by husband and wife Kristen and Kevin Howdeshell (sadly they are both way too expensive to add to my shopping list).

The World Ends in April by Stacy McAnulty

"We're running out of time. You need to be ready. 

Stay home tomorrow. 

Stock up on all the food, water, and medicine that you can. 

This event could change the world for months or more likely years"

Has this title caught your attention?  Are you thinking - oh it's okay this is May - April is far far away. But wait a minute why will the world end in April? Who says this will happen? How do they know? If this is indeed true what do we need to do to prepare? If the world ends will anyone survive?

During the time of COVID-19 it might seem curious that I would pick up this book from my local bookseller (Beachside Bookshop Avalon). So why did I choose this book?

• The title caught my attention (and I suspect it has caught yours too!)
• I have read some other books by Stacy McAnulty - picture books Beautiful and Brave
• I really 'enjoy' dystopian stories and the blurb gave the impression of this genre - in fact it is really more of a school story and the setting is right now in the present not in some imagined future
• A previous novel by Stacy McAnulty (as presented on the back cover) received star reviews from Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly - The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl.

Eleanor (Elle or Norie) reads a report on the internet from a Harvard University Professor called Dr Martin Cologne. He has put out a warning to the world that Asteroid 2010PL7, which is more than 5km across, is set to hit our Earth in Spring (US season). We are heading for a global catastrophe. Elle checks the internet further and discovers 2010PL7 is a near earth asteroid but nowhere does NASA say this asteroid is headed toward Earth.  Now Elle has a series of huge dilemmas.  Should she believe Dr Cologne? Should she tell others in her family and school about this impending terrible event? How can she prepare?

By coincidence Elle's grandfather Joe is prepper - "someone who spends their time and money preparing for the apocalypse." So Elle begins her preparations, she tries to convince the adults in her life, such as her dad, that this disaster is real, she forms a club at school with other kids who believe Dr Cologne and who want to be prepared and she works hard to inform and protect her closest (only) friend Mack who has a vision impairment.

Meanwhile Mack is preparing to leave the school and move to a residential school for the blind.  Elle is devastated. She needs Mack and she cannot imagine life especially life at school without him by her side. I should also mention that there are only 130 days to get everything organised.

You can read and listen to a text extract on the publisher web site. The back of the book has some useful additional information:

• Impact of other asteroids through history - Chicxulub 66 million years ago; Chesapeake Bay 35 millions years ago; Tunguska 30th June 1908; Chelyabinsk 15th February 2013.
• Definitions list - asteroid; comet; meteor; meterorite; meteroid.
• NASA Asteroid Facts
• Preparing for disasters - Readiness kit; Build a kit; Basic supplies list; Additional emergency supplies
• How to identify legitimate sources on the internet
• Acronyms - you do need to know TEOTWAWKI - The end of the world as we know it!
• Sources used to research this book - website and book list bibliography

I liked the pace of this story, I enjoyed the developing relationships, the disaster preparations were interesting but I did find the final reveal when we discover why Elle is so driven by this potential disaster was not really a strong enough plot point for me. That said I would recommend this book for readers 10+ as it is a fascinating topic especially at this time in our world when we have lockdowns and social isolation and the very real threat of the COVID virus.

Watching these kids spiral into paranoia, fueled by a fraudulent internet tale of conspiracies, makes for compelling reading. A page-turner. Kirkus

The book effectively captures the stress and sadness of young people projecting their anxiety onto an external event, and it'srealistic in its lack of neat and happy solution. Bulletin of the Centre for Children’s Books

I find this to be the perfect middle school book! The plot line of an upcoming doomsday weaves perfectly in with the feeling you have when you’re nearing high school and everything is changing.The characters in the book are all delightful, from Mack’s predilection for funny accents and keeping positive, to Londyn’s athlete-meets-rock-star vibes,to Grandpa Joe’s eagerness to connect with his grand kids on an apocalyptic level, to Eleanor, who is just trying to survive in more ways than one. Cannonball Read

I would pair The World ends in April with Catch a Falling Star by Meg McKinlay.

Follow Me by Rick Searle illustrated by Bronwyn Searle

It is day six of my twelve books of Christmas. We are suffering here in Australia with high temperatures and horrendous bushfires. On Christmas Eve in 1974 the Australian city of Darwin was hit with a powerful cyclone - Cyclone Tracy. The words of Dorothea Mackellar (verse 2 from her poem My Country) aptly describe our environment:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror -

The wide brown land for me!

"There were no presents that Christmas.

There was no house!

There was hardly any town left! ...

The fig tree was a sorry sight.

Not a twig. Not a leaf.

'It will grow back,' said Dad. 'It's a survivor."

Follow me begins when Dad was a boy. A tiny tree has taken root in the brick work of their Darwin house. Dad and Gran rescue the little plant. They put it in a pot and the next Christmas it goes into a bigger pot and so on until eventually the tree needs to go into the ground. Many years pass. Dad grows up and the tree becomes enormous. Every Christmas Dad returns to visit his mum (Gran) with his new family and to see his tree. Each year it is decorated with hundreds of Christmas lights. Then comes the Christmas of 1974.

"One sleep to Christmas. Christmas eve.
The storm broke.
Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed.
The wind moaned.
The rain drummed on Gran's tin roof.
It was so noisy I couldn't think.
It got worse.
Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed.
The wind howled. The rain pelted down."

Sadly the old fig tree crashes to the ground but six months later the family return. Gran has a new house built on the land of the old one and there, growing out of the driveway bricks the family see a tiny seedling. The fig tree has survived and is ready to grow all over again. I love the final image in this book. I hope you can see the vegemite jar:

Follow Me was published in 2001. Oddly I had not read this book until this week. I had no idea it was a Christmas story nor did I know it was such a perfect one to read here in Australia especially this year.