Julie and her best friend, Ivy, find a sick baby owl in Golden Gate Park. They take it to a wildlife rescue center and are told it may have pesticide poisoning. At the center, Julie and Ivy meet Shasta and Sierra, two bald eagles that will be caged for life unless money is raised to release them back into the wild. For Earth Day, Julie thinks of a unique way to tell the public of the eagles plight. The “Looking Back” section of this story explores the US environmental movement in the seventies, when this story takes place.
For the beginning of April, Earth Month, Julie and the Eagles, a middle grade novel showing children engaging in environmental activism, seems a good choice. There are plenty of good reviews of the book on Goodreads, and they match my recollection of this engaging story from back when my daughter was a devotée of the the American Girl series, including the Julie books. Many novels in this series have progressive themes, although other than Julie and the Eagles few explicitly show the characters engaging activism.
This latter characteristic is what I’m really looking for in this Fiction Featuring Activists section of Activist Explorer. Depicting characters in the day-to-day work of activism, the challenges, dilemmas, defeats, and triumphs of working with others for justice, peace, and planetary survival, is needed to demystify and de-stereotype activism.
Having more stories that show young people (as well as others of all ages) standing up, speaking out, making change, can bring readers directly into the action, encouraging them to empathize and identify with activists.
My hope is that, in addition to enjoying the story and vicariously being part of the action, readers—including young readers, also the audience for One Day for Peace, featured here last month—begin to see activism as normal and expected.