Our House is on Fire

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

'An extraordinary account of how one family rose, with unshakable moral clarity, to the tremendous responsibility of being alive at the moment when our immediate collective decisions will determine the fate of life on Earth. They share their story of courage not because they want our accolades, but because they demand our company. Greta Thunberg has already inspired a global moment - this book is part of how we will win' Naomi Klein

This is the story of a family led to confront a crisis they had never foreseen. Of a happy life with two young daughters which suddenly falters, never to be the same again. Aged eleven, the eldest stops eating and speaking, and her younger sister struggles to cope. Slowly, alongside diagnoses of autism and selective mutism, their desperate parents become aware of another source for their firstborn daughter's distress: her imperilled future on a rapidly heating planet.

Steered by her determination to understand the truth, the family begins to see the deep connections between their own and the planet's suffering. Against forces that try to silence them, disparaging them for being different, they discover ways to strengthen, heal, and act in the world. And then, one day, fifteen-year-old Greta decides to go on strike.

© Beata and Malena Ernman, Greta and Svante Thunberg 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Critics Review

  • Our House Is on Fire feels like a new form of nonfiction, intimate and approachable as a photo album: a family memoir. . . . This is also a remarkable story of togetherness: a modern family shifting and pivoting to keep each person afloat.

    New Republic
  • An urgent, lucid, courageous account. . . . Everyone with an interest in the future of the planet should read this book. It is a clear-headed diagnosis. It is a glimpse of a saner world. It is fertile with hope.

    Guardian
  • An extraordinary account of how one family rose, with unshakable moral clarity, to the tremendous responsibility of being alive at the moment when our immediate collective decisions will determine the fate of life on Earth. They share their story of courage not because they want our accolades, but because they demand our company. Greta Thunberg has already inspired a global moment–this book is part of how we will win.

    Naomi Klein
  • A surprisingly funny and optimistic book. Thunberg and her family might be screaming ‘FIRE’ on a crowded planet. But they believe we have the power to put that fire out if we act, right here, right now.

    Telegraph
  • A book about finding purpose as a route to recovery.

    Sunday Telegraph
  • This blazingly candid family memoir reveals the grueling and bewildering struggles that propelled Greta onto the world stage. . . . An unnerving and profoundly enlightening chronicle of the symbiosis between human and planetary health as manifest within one remarkable family whose painful awakeniThis blazingly candid family memoir reveals the grueling and bewildering struggles that propelled Greta onto the world stage. . . . An unnerving and profoundly enlightening chronicle of the symbiosis between human and planetary health as manifest within one remarkable family whose painful awakening to our ‘acute sustainability crisis’ should embolden us all.ng to our ‘acute sustainability crisis’ should embolden us all.

    Booklist (starred review)

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