The earth is like a computer, when one piece is missing the computer cannot be complete. So how will the earth continue to function when a polar bear encounter, a fire, and hurricane come a little too close to home? Climate change comes to center stage in the novel Two Degrees by Alan Gratz. Two Degrees follows the main characters Akira, Natalie, and Owen and George and their fight against climate change. Akira is riding on her horse in California with her dad when she notices some signs of a fire start to appear. Her dad also noticed, it but doesn’t pay attention to the signs of yet another climate change prone fire. After that, Akira and her dad meet some visitors that have never been to these parts in the woods, but traveled to see the giant sequoias. Then, what Akira predicted became overwhelmingly true and a fire that sound turned into a giant fast spreading wildfire and Akira, her horse, and her dad are trapped. Will Akira make it back to their house in time or will the new people they have met on the way slow them down and get engulfed in the flames? Other characters in this story include Owen and George, the two boys from Churchill, Canada. Owen and George are tour guides for their family’s business that goes around to different places in Churchill so the guests can see some of the giant polar bears. This is where brown lie down, black fight back, and white say goodnight comes into play, as they teach this saying to everyone on the tour. Once their day was over as tour guides they were going to go to their families cabin when problems arose. After starting out strong towards the house they run into a baby cub. If there is a cub there is a mom somewhere nearby. Then, they heard it, the mama bear was right by them the whole time and just about to pounce on them. Will Owen and George survive the attack or will climate change making the polar bears come closer to town be a factor in life or death? The last character in this novel is Natalie. Natalie is with her family when reports of a hurricane come into play. Her and family start getting ready right away so that what happened in the last hurricane won’t happen again. As the storm gets closer the storm starts to get very big and Natalie starts to become worried. They soon bring their elderly neighbor over so she is protected against the storm. When the storm hits it is as they expected, but even worse. Then, it broke Natalie and her family were in serious trouble and getting worse by the minute. Will Natalie and her family survive or will climate change get the best of them and claim their lives? To find out, read Two Degrees by Alan Gratz.

One scene that was very impactful in Two Degrees was when all of the kids in the book came together at a climate change convention. They made very impactful speeches and try to help persuade people to change their mind about climate change. When Natalie is up, a very powerful thing she says is “Climate change is big. It’s overwhelming. Sometimes it feels like you’re swimming against a hurricane” (Pg. 355). I have always known about climate change a little, but never really from this standpoint, and this book and quote just helped me realize this is a big problem and it just keeps getting bigger. This quote also helped me realize that climate change is starting to be a problem and people are facingthese natural disasters that are getting fed off of climate change. Finally, everyone around the world should do their part to not only help themselves, but anyone else that could be affected by this or any people in any future generations. To find out more about climate change and how you can help stop its effects, read Two Degrees by Alan Gratz.