Save The People by Stacy McAnulty || Nonfiction For The Dystopian At Heart

Item: Save the People!: Halting Human Extinction
Rating: 4
Author: Sammie

Posted May 17, 2022 by Sammie in arc, blog tour, book review, four stars, humor, kidlit, mid-grade, nonfiction / 0 Comments

Save The People by Stacy McAnulty || Nonfiction For The Dystopian At Heart

Save the People!: Halting Human Extinction

by Stacy McAnulty, Nicole Miles
on May 10, 2022
Genres: Middle Grade, Nonfiction, Humor
Pages: 256
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher

Stacy McAnulty, the bestselling author of The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl and the Our Universe series delivers an action-packed look at past extinction and current threats to humanity's survival -- with the ultimately reassuring message that humans probably have a few more millennia in us.

Scientists estimate that 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Whoa. So, it's not unreasonable to predict humans are doomed to become fossil records as well. But what could lead to our demise? Supervolcanos? Asteroids? The sun going dark? Climate change? All the above?!

Humans—with our big brains, opposable thumbs, and speedy Wi-Fi—may be capable of avoiding most of these nightmares. (The T. rexwould be super jealous of our satellites.) But we're also capable of triggering world-ending events. Learning from past catastrophes may be the best way to avoid future disasters.

Packed with science, jokes, and black and white illustrations, Save the People!examines the worst-case scenarios that could (but hopefully won’t) cause the greatest mass extinction—our own!

Rating:

Content Tags:

Perfect for readers who want:

A deeper look into potentially catastrophic disasters
A tongue-in-cheek recount of some of the biggest natural disasters in history
Various ways that humans could be doomed, usually in the not-so-near future
Lots of delicious, geeky, nerdy science goodness (in easily digestible chunks)
Super cute disaster-laced illustrations

Many thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Rockstar Book Tours for an ARC in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Confession: I’m absolutely addicted to apocalyptic things. The more likely to happen, the better. I absolutely love reading about natural disasters. It’s like a little slice of humble pie in the form of a reminder that Mother Nature can mess you up any time she decides! So obviously a title like Save the People! grabbed my attention because, one, whyyyyy? To heck with the people. Save the dragons! But two, okay, yes, tell me more about upcoming natural disasters.

Save the People! is a humor non-fiction book that focuses on the things that could go wrong and ultimately doom humanity. It’s filled with easily digestible, bite-sized science; cute illustrations; and lots of really interesting facts. Also, explosions. And who doesn’t like explosions?!

This book was super fun. I read part of it with Minion, who’s 11 now, and even though she’s not a sciencey kid (we’re still wondering exactly how she missed the reading and science genes and somehow picked up math?!), she enjoyed the parts we read together. As did I! While this book does delve into some science principles that are likely to be a bit over children’s heads, most of it is pretty well boiled down and easy to grasp, and the humor mixed in meant that it wasn’t at all a bummer of a book, despite the somewhat dark subject matter.

Sooo . . . why save the humans, again? And just who are these “humans” that we’re saving? Fear not, McAnulty will tell you.

I mean, short answer is: we’re the humans, and since “we” are part of that statistic, we should probably be concerned with saving ourselves. If nothing else, out of pure self-interest, right?

I took an anthropology class in college, so I was already fairly familiar with a brief look at early human evolution. For those who don’t know, though, McAnulty lays the groundwork for humanity, from the very earliest throes of the universe through human evolution. Readers will be introduced to Lucy, the Australopithecus afarensis, and our more modern ancestors, Homo erectus and Neanderthals.

Going into this book, I expected just a sort of laundry list of things that can destroy humans (spoiler alert: it’s everything, basically). I was pleasantly surprised to see that’s not the case. McAnulty lays the groundwork of history first, including the evolution of our species and some early disasters that have happened along the way before we even graced the scene.

Now, I’m not a huge history buff, but I do love archaeology, paleontology, and examinations of prehistoric life on Earth, so this was not only fascinating for me, but I also learned quite a bit!

Unless you’re reading this aloud to your dog, cat, or pet lemur, let’s assume everyone perusing or listening to this book is human. And currently, the only humans living on the planet are Homo sapiens.

So, hello, Homo sapeiens!

(Homo is Latin for man. Sapiens is Latin for wise.)

But this has not always been the case. To put it simply, a human is an animal under the genus Homo. This includes Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis (sometimes referred to as “hobbits” because of their size), and Neanderthals. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are considered our closest living relatives, and they’re in the genus Pan. So what makes a human (in the genus Homo) different from a creature in the genus Pan? It’s our big, energy-sucking brains! A human brain requires 25 percent of our energy while the body is at rest (like when you’re sitting at your desk doing homework). An ape’s brain uses only 8 percent. Humans also can make cool tools. Other animals, like crows and apes, use tools too, but humans invented the waffle maker and the porta potty, so we win.

Despite being chock full of science, Save The People! is written in an easily understandable way that almost every reader will be able to walk away having learned something new.

Being the fan that I am of all things disaster, I’ve read my fair share of disaster books and watched the documentaries and YouTube shows. Plus, it may come as a surprise because I know I hide it so well, but I am extremely nerdy. Yet, there were still plenty of things I learned from this book, and I had a ton of fun doing it, too!

The concepts, even the hard ones, are presented in a way that’s very easy for young readers to understand, which I appreciated. While I enjoy science, I’m not very science-minded and my brain tends to overheat easily. I had no trouble following the science terms and logic in this book, though.

The other mass extinctions are interesting, but they can’t compare to the thrilling and exciting event that killed off dinosaurs, IMHO. At least the non-avian dinosaurs. Birds are living, breathing, real-life dinosaurs. But let’s gently shove them aside for a moment and pay our respects to the dinosaurs that no longer roam.

Save The People! is written in a humorous tone with analogies and lingo that middle grade readers will likely relate to. So even though it has some dark content, it’s a pretty funny book.

Which, in my opinion, is the best way to write a book with somewhat dark content! There’s a very tongue-in-cheek narration style filled with sarcasm and light humor that made me chuckle repeatedly. It made the reading quite enjoyable and distracted from the idea that we’re considering the extinction of our species. Plus, the author incorporates certain lingo like “IMHO” and things that will be very relatable to young readers.

People became obsessed with real estate only 12,000 years ago with the development of farming. At first glance, this might sound like a great idea. Let’s take some seeds, and instead of eating them all, let’s plant them in the ground and make more food. Brilliant! What an investment! Humans were able to feed more people while staying in one place. But it turns out that farming is hard work, especially before the invention of tractors, pesticides, and sprinklers. In the beginning, humans had few domesticated animals to help out. An ancient farmer’s workday was probably longer than a nomad’s. Also, with the rise of farming, human diets became less varied. If we grow corn, we eat mostly corn. If we grow rice, we eat mostly rice. If we grow pizza, we eat mostly pizza. (We cannot live on pizza alone. For a balanced diet, we need a salad too.)

While McAnulty raises a lot of potentially fatal disasters, she doesn’t completely leave the reader hanging in terms of what can be done to avoid these outcomes.

Well, to be fair, some outcomes are unavoidable, as the author admits. For example, the sun will definitely hit the point where it’s no longer optimal for human survival. Luckily for us, none of us will be alive to see it . . . unless one of you has already cracked the secret to immortality. In which case, I fully expect you to share!

Despite some potentially grim outlooks for our many-times-great descendants, McAnulty mentions ways that humans can work to either mostly avoid or help mitigate some of these outcomes, including disaster preparedness, controlling CO2 emissions, and being better stewards of the planet in general. While I do love straight-up disaster books, given the target audience is middle grade, I like this more hopeful approach and the idea of leaving readers with the idea that they can work toward a better future.

SAD is an acronym for “standard American diet.” It’s a generalization about eating habits in the United States, where meals tend to have large portions of meat and other animal products, like eggs and cheese. Statistics show that the average American consumes a whopping 222 pounds of red meat and poultry per year. For each person who partakes in the standard American diet, 2.67 acres of land (or about two football fields) are needed to grow and raise that food per year.

Sample SAD menu: eggs and bacon for breakfast, cheeseburger for lunch, and spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. If every human ate this way, we would need two planet Earths to grow and raise enough food. As of the printing of this book, there’s only one planet Earth.

This book isn’t necessarily for the faint of heart, and I would caution those with severe anxiety. The author even includes a warning in the opening for readers going into the book.

While the book itself tends not to be graphic, it does discuss a lot of negative what-if scenarios that may be highly triggering to people with severe anxiety. There are also mentions of illness and sometimes detailed (ish) descriptions of side effects from illnesses, which may not be for people whose stomach turns easily. As I said, it isn’t graphic, but it is a bit detailed. While none of this bothered me at all, I just wanted to include a general warning (as the author does, too) for anyone who may be bothered by this content!

Have you ever had anthrax? The disease causes fever, chills, sore throat, headache, fatigue, vomiting (perhaps bloody vomiting), and diarrhea (perhaps bloody diarrhea). It ain’t pretty . . . and you’ve probably never had it. Anthrax is almost unheard of in North America and Europe. But in 2016, a twelve-year-old boy in the Yamal Peninsula in Russia died of anthrax, and about 100 others were hospitalized. Here’s what scientists believe happened. Seventy-five years earlier, a reindeer with anthrax croaked. The Yamal Peninsula is above the Arctic Circle, so the animal carcass froze and remained frozen until climate change brought a heat wave to the region. The reindeer’s body thawed, and while the reindeer did not come back to life (no one likes a zombie reindeer), the anthrax bacteria woke up. The disease infected water and soil, which infected over 2,000 modern-day reindeer, and then it spread to humans.

About Stacy McAnulty

STACY MCANULTY doesn’t think the world will end suddenly, but she does worry about the ongoing damage to the environment caused by her species. Nonetheless, she believes Homo sapiens can overcome challenges and reverse course by taking action. Before becoming an author, Stacy was a mechanical engineer (and before that— like in fourth grade—she was an aspiring astronaut). Her love of math and science is reflected in most of her books. She writes chapter books, middle-grade novels, including The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl, and picture books, including the Our Universe series, which explores space and the natural world. Save the People is her debut middle-grade nonfiction. Originally from New York, she now lives in North Carolina with her family.

About Nicole Miles

Nicole was born in the United States, grew up in The Bahamas and currently lives in West Yorkshire (UK) with her pet snake and human boyfriend. She has worked with a variety of clients including Adobe, Buzzfeed, Candlewick Press, Google, the New York Times, Penguin Random House, Rebel Girls, Simon & Schuster, and Sisters Letter (AARP). Her comic, Barbara (ShortBox, 2017), was nominated for an Eisner award.

Her favourite form of procrasti-working is always some sort of creation whether it be bettering her hand-lettering, making animated gifs, chronicling silly life moments or informative sustainability tips in comic form, experimenting with film photography or sewing new garments for herself. But she also dedicates a lot of time to improving her second language (French), reading and, recently, going on forest walks.

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1 winner will receive a finished copy of SAVE THE PEOPLE!, US Only.

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Save The People by Stacy McAnulty || Nonfiction For The Dystopian At Heart