Hilarious environmentally-friendly adventure: Read our review of The Carbon Neutral Adventures of the Indefatigable Enviroteens by First Dog on the Moon

This book should come with a warning for adults: loosen your mind and enjoy the ride. I’m firmly convinced that kids have much more elastic imaginations than adults, and this book reminds me of the absurd and rather hectic place my imagination once was. After reading this book I feel like my brain expanded so that I can accommodate more esoteric chains of thoughts unhindered by convention, reality, and logic. What a wonderful place to escape to! 

The author and illustrator, First Dog on the Moon, has a very elastic, expansive and hectic imagination and somehow, he manages to capture all that chaos and sideways-bending logic in his characters and illustrations. 

The three main characters are Binky (a platypus), Worried Norman (once bitten by a radioactive croissant and now known as Pastry Person), and Letitia (a bossy science-wombat and genius inventor). Together they are the Enviroteens and they are on a mission to thwart the evil plans of SingleUse Plastic Brendan, the evil plastic bag who is hanging out at one of the world’s worst floating garbage islands, hatching an evil plan to destroy all of turtle-kind. 

The adventure starts as Binky gets foozed right in the face by a clingwrapifier. A sinister bunch of microbeads are swarming into a scarifying monster, and our Enviroteen heroes throw themselves into the fight with abandon. As the adventure races along at a cracking pace, the Enviroteens invent a defoofiliser which works wonders to clean up the polluted atmosphere. Will the Big Rosti succeed in his evil plan to shut down the defoofing? How can three teenagers overcome these insurmountable odds?

Featuring real-life dilemmas vexing a generation of Australian kids, this book makes us think more expansively about the issues at hand, band-aid solutions, ineffective activities that make us feel better but achieve very little, the motivations of enviro-villains and enviro-crusaders, and whether it might be easier to go and have a little lie down somewhere quiet until it all resolves itself .*

First Dog on the Moon is the Walkley Award-winning political cartoonist from The Guardian Australia. A true polymath, First Dog has done all sorts of interesting things including books, radio, stage shows and lots of lying down. His illustrations are quirky and detailed, encouraging the reader to search for clues and extra meaning. He has created characters who are flawed but lovable, and they demonstrate sensitivity and vulnerability in confusing situations, but they also rise to the occasion when it really counts. 

This book will appeal to anyone who finds humour in the absurdities of life, fans of Dav Pilkey, fans of Andy Griffiths’ and Terry Denton’s Treehouse series and environmental activists 10+. 

A portion of the publisher’s profits will be donated to School Strike 4 Climate Australia. 

*Unlikely and not a recommended tactic