review: Onward: 16 Climate Fiction Short Stories to Inspire Hope

title: 16 Climate Fiction Short Stories to Inspire Hope
editor: Nora Shalaway Carpenter
date: Charlesbridge Teen; 24 February 2026
young adult

The number of short story anthologies has really increased in recent years. They’re good for educators who can no longer include full length books in their curriculum and they’re also good for readers who prefer shorter selections, or the opportunity to sample works of various artists. Onward: 16 Climate Fiction Short Stories to Inspire Hope is a good selection on both accounts. For the most part, Carpenter really nails ‘diversity’ and that makes this a truly enjoyable collection. While representation from the queer and disabilities community is somewhat lacking, Carpenter manages to provide storytelling from a truly wide variety of cultures, genre, geographies, and themes.

Jeff Zenter’s reality-based fiction develops connections between land and memory, exemplifying place-based literacy as does the nonfiction of Xelena González.

M. Garcia Peña and Aya de Leon write through the lens of indigenous and decolonial literacy.

The loss or augmentation of cultural and community literacies is examined by Padma Venkatraman, Aleese Lin, and Heather Dean Brewer.

Recognizing how these stories serve as literacy tools helps us better understand the complex relationship that humans have with Earth, and it relates how important we are to each other.

This is an important collection to have in school and public libraries to examine craft, the realities of our climate and what might be next for all of us.

Be well and do good

Filed under: Reviews