February 2026
When the World Ends is a stunningly extraordinary environmental middle grade novel. Exploring a dystopian view of the world after a fictional second pandemic and the war that followed it, author Joanna Nadin challenges readers with a blunt and incredibly powerful view of what the world might be like when Mother Nature fights back. With themes of family, community and home at its heart, readers explore finding hope in loss, the necessity for sustainable living and what it means to be displaced.
Through an engaging combination of poetry, prose and personal journal, readers follow two groups of children struggling to survive in an unimaginable world. After years of warnings about the use of plastic straws and melting polar ice caps, it’s happened. Sea levels have risen by 60 metres, coastal communities are underwater and resources are scarce. This is a crisis like no other and life will never be the same again.
As the rains begin, Paris and Otis find themselves boarding an actual ark with Paris’s aunt. Her commune has been preparing for this scenario so forty people and their animals are able to float into the unknown. Questions overwhelm them as they wonder: Will be ever see land again? What has happened to the rest of their family? What is truly most important when everything is washed away?
This would be a fantastic book to read aloud with an older primary or Key Stage 3 class (with the poems and journal entries shown under the visualiser) or as a group with insightful readers looking for a challenge. It is sure to prompt rich discussion, endless questions and incredible empathy building. There is so much to explore through each unique character and their personal situation. I’m sure that, like me, readers will be left considering their place in the world, how they can protect what we so often take for granted and how life always finds a way.
Thank you to Fox & Ink Books for a copy of this powerful book!
This year, my daughter’s school drama group took part in National Theatre Connections. Their assigned play was “Mia and the Fish” which explores climate crisis, flooding and our ability to respond to an emergency. This is such an important theme for young people to engage with and understand.
https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/whats-on/connections-2025-mia-and-the-fish/
To further develop these themes, read When the Storm Comes by Polly Ho-Yen:
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Scope for Imagination 