When a fire started near Dan Paley’s home in Ventura, California, in 2018, his children were curious about it. He began looking for children’s books that could teach them about wildfires and the various people who fight them. “I couldn’t find anything else that offered what I was looking for,” Paley said. Instead, his research turned into his own children’s book, titled They Hold The Line.
As fires touch more lives, they’ve inspired more books, too. Stories can help children understand wildfires and the many ways they affect our lives. High Country News reviewed five children’s books on wildfire, each suitable for different reading levels. These selections depict the diversity of the people who fight fire and the ways we can all be impacted by it.
Fire Shapes the World
Joanna Cooke, illustrated by Cornelia Li and Diāna Renžina
34 pages, hardcover: $17.99
Yosemite Conservancy, 2023
Reading age: 4-8 years
While many fire-related books focus on dramatic topics like firefighting or evacuation, Fire Shapes the World spends only a couple pages on that, instead centering fire as a force for good. Author Joanna Cooke reminds us that fire can be a source of connection and storytelling as well as a way of caring for the land. The book’s characters look at it with awe and wonder, their eyes drawn to bright crackling embers on several pages. Illustrations lean toward the celestial and ethereal, with a lot of gorgeous sky scenes — powerful thunderstorms, star-studded sunsets and even an erupting volcano.
Young readers will learn that humans have always had a relationship with fire. Fire, Cooke explains, is fundamental and multifaceted: “It has both the power to destroy and the power to create.” These big concepts are illuminated in ways that young children can easily grasp: For example, fire’s long history is emphasized by giving it a birthday.
The book’s publisher, Yosemite Conservancy, collaborated with citizens of the Mountain Maidu/Chippewa, Southern Sierra Miwuk and Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a tribes to offer some important and often-overlooked Indigenous perspectives.
“It has both the power to destroy and the power to create.”
The Fox and the Forest Fire
Danny Popovici
44 pages, hardcover: $17.99
Chronicle Books, 2021
Reading age: 5-8 years
In The Fox and the Forest Fire, Oswald, a young boy, is learning to love his new home in the forest. But all that changes when he spots a plume of smoke. Oswald and other forest creatures flee, wondering if they’ll have a home to return to.
When Oswald’s house burns down, his loss isn’t glossed over. Instead, author and illustrator Danny Popovici emphasizes that the boy and his mother are safe, and he takes an optimistic, forward-looking perspective. His colorful illustrations highlight vibrant new shoots of regrowth and show the animals going busily about their lives post-fire. “While things don’t look like they did before, the forest knows what to do after a fire,” Popovici writes. The book’s gentle tone and its playful drawings — the fox jumping into water puddles, popping out of a log, scampering around the forest and sleeping in a tree — add to its whimsical, light-hearted feel.
Popovici, a former wildland firefighter who lives in Portland, Oregon, deftly weaves themes of resilience and recovery throughout the book. The final page offers more information about wildfires (with brief sidebars about prescribed fires and climate change), making it a nice resource for parents who read to their children and who want to continue learning together.
Simone
Viet Thanh Nguyen, illustrated by Minnie Phan
48 pages, hardcover: $18.99
Minerva, 2024
Reading age: 5-9 years
Simone is a touching, gorgeously illustrated picture book about a Vietnamese American girl whose life is transformed by a wildfire. Author Viet Thanh Nguyen highlights the diversity of wildland firefighters, noting, within the first 10 pages, that some of them belong to prison firefighting crews. The idea that anyone can grow up to become a firefighter comes up again later in the book, with children in an evacuation center drawing firefighters who are Black, brown and Asian. “Make sure you draw girl firefighters,” Simone instructs her newfound friends.
A smattering of Vietnamese words and some history provide a perspective seldom represented in wildfire books. In his author’s note, Nguyen notes the similarities between how Vietnamese American refugees in San Jose, California, initially fled war in Vietnam and then later, with their children, had to flee from another man-made crisis — wildfire — in the U.S. “Generations were connected as children were rescued from disaster by parents who had once been saved themselves as children by their parents,” he wrote.
Illustrator Minnie Phan uses colored pencil and graphite to bring the fire to life, giving the images a soft, almost cartoonish effect. Mostly grayscale drawings highlight important objects — like flames on the horizon or the orange jumpsuit of an incarcerated firefighter — with the strategic use of color. Both Kirkus and The School Library Journal singled out Simone as a “Best Picture Book of the Year” in 2024.
They Hold the Line
Dan Paley, illustrated by Molly Mendoza
44 pages, hardcover: $18.99
Chronicle Books, 2023
Reading Age: 7-10 years
Dan Paley was inspired to write They Hold the Line when his three sons, then aged 5, 7 and 9, asked him a simple question: Who protects us from wildfires? “I thought putting together a book that focused on the helpers would be a good way to reassure children while also explaining wildfire and fire ecology,” he said.
The resulting book is surprisingly comprehensive, covering everything from firefighting tools to the importance of water. Young readers learn about the many parts that make up the wildfire-fighting apparatus, from fire lookouts and fire camps to life on the fire line and what aerial operations involve. The book also provides information about firefighting tactics and even the specialized clothing firefighters wear. Molly Mendoza’s vivid illustrations add excitement, depicting firefighters spraying burning houses, planes dropping retardant and deer racing away from flames.
Paley also delves into what happens after a fire, including how the wild animals recover and what kind of pollutants might be left behind. The last few pages go more deeply into fire ecology and fire management and offer some safety tips and tricks for firefighters, a nice addition for older readers or for parents looking to discuss more complex topics. They Hold the Line won high praise from reviewers and received starred reviews from Booklist and Horn Book Magazine.
Wildfire: A Graphic Novel
Breena Bard
288 pages, softcover: $12.99
Little, Brown Ink, 2023
Reading age: 8-14 years
Upheaval, grief and frustration are all channeled into action in Wildfire: A Graphic Novel. A middle-schooler’s life is turned upside down after a wildfire burns through her rural western Oregon home and her family relocates to Portland. Julianna struggles with adjusting to a new school, new friends and a new neighborhood.
She reluctantly joins a conservation club but discovers that it helps her cope with her unresolved feelings of loss, confusion and anger; plus, she makes new friends. Writer and illustrator Breena Bard uses the club’s meetings and activities to explain how climate change is making wildfires worse, and she makes being an environmentalist seem not just interesting but also fun and cool. Julianna grapples with the role of individual choices versus collective action in fighting climate change, and her conversations with other characters help readers understand that they, too, can play an important role while recognizing they are not solely responsible for ending climate change.
The book introduces advanced concepts — pre-wildfire burn bans, post-wildfire insurance claims and even the connection between fossil fuel companies and plastic trash — and makes them accessible to readers. Youthful friendship drama and some relatable parent-child angst help propel the plot and add interest outside the climate science lessons. Wildfire was a Booklist “Best Book of the Year” in 2023, as well a selection of the Washington Evergreen Graphic Novel Award Reading List.
