- Imprint: Vintage
- ISBN: 9781529939019
- Length: 240 pages
- Price: £12.99
Think Like a Forest
Letters to my Children from a Changing Planet
Cal FlynClimate change is an intergenerational issue: an existential crisis we are bequeathing to our descendants. Ben Rawlence's letters to his daughters grapple with questions of injustice and adaptation - but also celebrate the joy and hope and wonder of small children. Beautiful and thought-provoking
Merlin Hanbury-TenisonA delightful and important book. Every parent should read this and consider it as a handrail for climate conscious and compassionate 21st-century parenting. Having loved every page I have now begun writing letters to my own young daughters to emulate Ben’s piercing insight and heartfelt example
Jay GriffithsHow do you find the right path when no one has come this way before? This book is a thoughtful, tender way to make a map of new and frightening territory.
Owen SheersHumane, honest and painfully true, Rawlence’s letters to his daughters neatly encapsulate the systemic nature of our current crisis of values, while also shedding valuable light on where we might go and how we might thrive if we can only find a way to change them.
Mark LynasAs moving as it is illuminating… a book like no other, a story told through letters written by a loving father to his young daughters as they grow up in an increasingly uncertain world.
Jane Davidson, author of #FUTUREGEN: Lessons from a Small CountryThese are beautifully written, endearing and hopeful letters which made me laugh and cry... It’s a book for all ages about conversations we all need to have -- and if you don’t know how to start them, there’s a very helpful manual at the back!
Emeritus Prof. Rupert Read, author of PARENTS FOR A FUTUREA great taboo of our time - how to talk with our children about the broken world they’re growing up into - is coming to an end. This book marks a notable moment in that necessary transformation. The sensitivity with which Ben Rawlence approaches the topic, in these letters, is lovely to behold. Not least, because he sets out here how this is very much about listening to the young, too.
Jonathon PorrittI loved this book. Really, really loved it. Not just because I also have two daughters (so I was feeling it, on every step of a typically troubled parent’s climate path), but because, magically, he turns this intimate story into an extraordinarily compassionate account of what it's like to be living through the earliest stages of climate breakdown – regardless of whether or not you have children or grandchildren of your own.
Financial TimesThe message running through the book is that adults have much to learn from children, not least their moral clarity about a climate problem that will be the defining challenge of their lives
Resurgence & EcologyTold through a series of frank and heartfelt letters to his daughters… It is helpful to read that other parents find such mental conjuring overwhelming… What better ambition for a parent as we hold our children's hands and walk towards the world that is yet to come?
About Ben Rawlence
Ben Rawlence is the award-winning author of Radio Congo, City of Thorns, The Treeline and Think Like a Forest. His writing has been translated into a dozen languages. The Treeline won the 2023 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism and the 2022 Schmidt Award for Excellence in Science Communications, among others. He is the co-founder and director of the pioneering educational institution Black Mountains College in Wales.
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All editions
- Hardback 2026
- Paperback 2027
- Ebook 2026
- Audio Download 2026

