This book provides a good overview of the history and structure of heat waves and their effects on the environment. This entry in Apex's "Forecasting Disasters" series provides examples of notable heat waves around the world and talks about the history of naming and tracking the phenomenon. The book also shows the technologies that people have developed over the years to track and ward off heat, as well as their attempts to make the world a cooler, more comfortable place to live for all creatures on earth. As with other Apex volumes, a glossary and interactive discussion questions are included at the end. The publication of the book is timely considering the extreme heat we've seen both during this summer and last summer, which children have likely seen for themselves. Dalton Rains' writing is clear and concise for the target audience. He presents the information in a style that feels more relaxed and less like a series of bullet points.

I appreciated that the author uses a mix of heat wave examples and included incidents from recent memory. These include the Chicago heat wave of 1995, of which this year marks the 30th anniversary of its occurrence. This is a tragedy that I don't recall seeing mentioned often as a whole, much less in children's nonfiction. so to see its inclusion here was a welcome surprise. I would have liked to see more detailed information about this incident, in particular the way that racial and social inequalities impacted the response to the heat wave and the number of deaths. The book could benefit overall from a deeper discussion on how the above factors contribute to extreme heat and what it means for communities. Rains mentions, for example, that heat waves have a more damaging impact in areas that are "already struggling," and that relief workers often do targeted outreach to areas that are low-income. He lists two low-income countries as examples of struggling places, but doesn't go into detail about why those places are struggling, at least on an environmental level. There also could have been more discussion about how things such as population density impact the high temperatures of places.


I realize that this is meant to be an overview and as such cannot provide super detailed information about every related subject. Nonetheless, the book does at times tend to make general statements without providing enough context, and that context is important for children to understand how heat waves happen. For example, Rains does mention the role that human activity has on heat waves, such as in the production of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases. But there are no diagrams which show how these gasses get trapped in the atmosphere, or how fossil fuels are produced. It's important to emphasize the reality for children of just how much human activity has facilitated climate change and led to situations that we are all dealing with. This would include discussions of climate change denialism, which would fit well with the book considering the visible rhetoric around our warming planet.


This would be a good addition for a classroom or library's nonfiction collection about weather, climate and the changing nature of our atmosphere. I can also see it being used with activity books and hands-on science experiments that focus on climate change and green solutions for kids.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, North Star Editions (Apex) for this DRC in exchange for a fair and honest review. The thoughts and opinions expressed below are my own.

This is an educational book about heatwaves around the 10 year old age range. It did a good job of making the book international focused and was scientifically accurate with clear and simple explanations and interesting visuals but some did look a bit dated. Great for classroom use!

This nicely shows us the heat wave and how it works, and what is to be done during them. It also has a good spread of detail about how we are now predicting them, with the visuals strong on the history of weather forecasting over the last century. Easily readable for the young scientist – although I would encourage them to read all the bitty box-outs and factoids and captions when going through these pages a second time, after the main core of the text – this gets four stars, and seems to be introducing an eight-book set on how we are forewarning ourselves about various disasters rather well.

This book offers a solid and accessible introduction to the topic of heat waves, making it a valuable resource for young readers beginning to learn about extreme weather events. It explains what heat waves are, how they affect people and the environment, and what can be done to stay safe during extreme heat. The writing is clear and age-appropriate, and the visuals help break down key ideas in a way that is easy to understand.

The organization of the book and the use of visuals throughout make it easy to read and engaging. Further, the timeline, glossary, and discussion questions at the back of the book are excellent additions for both classroom and independent readers.

While the book is informative overall, there are a few areas that, I, as someone who works in this area, believe could be improved. For example, this book doesn’t clearly distinguish between weather and climate, an important concept that would help students better understand how heat waves fit into broader environmental patterns. Additionally, some of the graphics used, while eye-catching and thematically appropriate, didn’t seem to make sense given who I believe is the intended audience of this text., For instance, one graphic depicts temperatures in Celsius while another includes a pamphlet written in French. While these elements aren’t issues on their own, they could be confusing or make some information less accessible for what I think is intended for children in the U.S.

Additionally, although I realize this may be a strong critique for a book aimed at younger readers, I do feel it’s important to note that the role of institutions in contributing to the harms associated with heat waves is somewhat downplayed, while their role of governments in responding to these events is at times overemphasized (For the examples from the U.S.). At times, the book places more focus on institutional responses than on their responsibility for underlying vulnerabilities. To its credit, the book acknowledges that the impacts of heat waves vary across age groups, countries, and income levels, an important inclusion. However, it often overlooks deeper social and structural factors. For instance, the vignette on the 1995 Chicago heat wave makes no mention of race, despite the well-documented role that racialized inequities played in shaping who was most affected. While some may argue that topics like systemic injustice or institutional accountability are too complex for younger readers, the book does address other serious outcomes like death and displacement, making it all the more important not to sidestep the social conditions that produce them.

That said, despite being made for a much younger audience, I genuinely think some of the overview information would be a good starting place for anyone wanting to learn about the topic, including some of my intro-level college students.

Thank you to NetGalley, North Star Editions, and Apex for the advanced copy for review. Opinions are my own.