The Adventures of Captain Polo Book 3: Polo in East Africa follows a polar bear on a mission to combat climate change who winds up on an international journey learning how climate change has impacted animals around the world. What is a key takeaway from this story you hope children understand?

A key takeaway is how people are connected across the world regardless of where they live and who they are. In the context of climate change this is an important message, particularly from people living in the Global North, where on a day to day basis we don’t see so many of the brutal front line effects of global warming. I particularly wanted to convey this sense of connection to my young readers in the context of consumer behavior, e.g. every time a kid in Europe or the US gets a new electronic device it will create a ripple effect across the world, in this case, more electronic waste shipped off to developing countries to pollute groundwater and ultimately harm kids the same age with the same interests who live in those countries. That particular example is used in Book 3 and is not immediately relatable to climate change per se but it nicely illustrates the point. 

One of the most interesting features of your books is how you provide actionable suggestions for young readers on how to combat climate change, allowing them to feel they can do something beneficial. How do you envision your books being used in an educational or school setting?

I’ve always thought that my books would make very good reading material in schools, and indeed this idea is starting to prove correct as I now have schools in different parts of the world effectively buying and using my books. Science and Humanities teachers in particular find them valuable to aid their own efforts to include climate change in their already very busy curriculum. An example is how dozens of schools and environmental educational institutions in the Galapagos islands off Ecuador are currently benefiting from the Captain Polo series (Spanish language editions) in the framework of a donor-funded project that includes dissemination of these resources, as well as of others I have specifically created for this project. Similarly a school in Malaysia where I recently delivered (remotely) a climate storytelling workshop teaching students how to make their own comics with a climate change message is now investing in the purchase of the entire Captain Polo collection for its library. Parents too can use the Captain Polo books in homeschooling scenarios or just to complement their own knowledge about the issue of climate change and its many ramifications. For this reason, although my target readers are middle grade kids, my target buyers are adults, principally parents, teachers, and librarians. 

It’s not just the books: Captain Polo is also starting to appear in animation videos; one project targeting cacao farmers in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador commissioned me to produce the scripts and artwork for a series of short video clips explaining climate change and how to take adaptive action in the context of rural, cacao producing communities in these countries. Similarly Captain Polo appears in a children’s story book I authored, which targets schools in these regions. The objective is to bring climate literacy to these very marginalized communities so that they can have greater agency for effective adaptation. Captain Polo resources are also to be found at the heart of grass roots climate education initiatives in the US, currently in California. 

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

One of the most surprising things I learned was how climate change is often at the root of the most unexpected situations everyone automatically associates to very different causes. The case in point is how the humanitarian crisis affecting Syria and causing the forced movement of Syrian and also North African migrants to Europe is actually partly grounded in climate change: that part of the world suffered a prolonged, 5-year drought that decimated rural populations and forced them to migrate to the big cities in search of work. This coincided with the Arab Spring, adding fuel to the fire so to speak, and in many countries resulted in civil war and violent conflict. Additional political effects such as repressive regimes and of course the underlying long term impact of colonialism all exacerbated these situations, and because of that today Europe is facing a worsening immigration crisis. In Book 3 Captain Polo learns of this during the scenes where he crosses the Mediterranean heading for Europe after escaping a sticky situation in Cairo. 

What types of questions do you ask yourself when planning a new book, and do you have more adventures planned for Captain Polo?

I ask myself what aspects of climate change still need to be talked about and better understood. I ask myself what my target readers might care about, and also what geographies to focus on. At the same time however I need to always keep in mind the story and plot, which need to be fast-paced, exciting and fun with lots of room for humor and adventure. 

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