Book cover for Butterfly Wings: A Hopeful Story about Climate Anxiety by Samuel Larochelle

Butterfly Wings

A Hopeful Story about Climate Anxiety

2023 Released
104 Pages
1-2 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Paperback Unavailable
Greystone KidsISBN 9781778400827
Translated by Arielle Aaronson

An honest exploration of climate anxiety, for kids 8+ and the adults who love them.

When ten-year-old Florent overhears his mothers discussing the possibility of having another baby--and expressing their reluctance due to fears about the planet--his mind races off into a spiral of fear and guilt. Is the planet suffering because there are too many children--children like him? Do his parents think they made a mistake by bringing him into the world?

One night, Florent dreams that the forests have all burned to the ground and that his parents are flying away on a spaceship, abandoning him on a ruined planet. When he wakes up, he decides to stop talking... until a discussion with his mothers changes everything.

At a time when climate change is negatively impacting kids' mental health, Butterfly Wings provides:

  • Anxiety relief: provides a safe space for kids to process their anxiety, fear, and other emotions about the climate
  • A social-emotional learning tool for parents and teachers to talk about climate change with kids through a gentle and hopeful lens

Through thoughtful words and gorgeous illustrations, this compassionate story confronts the very real challenge of climate anxiety in a way that is accessible to young readers. Butterfly Wings provides children with a way to understand their feelings, while also offering hope for a different future.


Arielle Aaronson

Translated by

ARIELLE AARONSON left her native New Jersey in 2007 to pursue a diploma in Translation Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. She holds an M.A. in Second Language Education from McGill University and has spent the past few years teaching English in the Montreal public school system and creating educational material for second language learners. She previously translated Marie-Renée Lavoie's Autopsy of a Boring Wife and A Boring Wife Settles the Score for Arachnide.

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