Coming September 2025
The world was upside-down. The wind was fire. The sky was ash. The rain was rock.
A couple of hundred years ago, on a quiet Indonesian island, a volcano called Tambora erupted with a force and violence that changed history.
It tore apart the island, and in the months and years that followed, its fallout tore apart the world. The sun refused to shine; the rain refused to stop. Everything that everyone assumed would always be there—a world that made sense, a climate that made sense—was suddenly gone.
From this riot of thunder and lightning, a young woman named Mary Shelley conceived of a scientist and his cursed creature. From the nightmare of Tambora, she wrote a nightmare of a book: Frankenstein—a terrifying reminder of how much damage we humans might do, without even realizing it.
This is the story of a volcano that changed the world and a creature that changed us.
Once upon a time, everything was different. And no one knew if it would ever be the same.
In this masterful work of middle-grade nonfiction, illustrated by Yas Imamura, Nicholas Day brings us a story taken from the archives but seemingly scripted for us today: a tale of climate change and human folly and hope—and what happens when the world suddenly goes wrong.
“In this enthralling page-turner, Nicholas Day has written a tour-de-force for our times, at once a heart-stopping tale of climate change and a profoundly hopeful call to action. This is narrative non-fiction writing at its unforgettable best.” — Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal winner for The One and Only Ivan
“Nicholas Day is a master storyteller, and this is a story for our time: chock-a-block with fascinating details about the past while simultaneously posing high-stakes questions about the future. A genre-defying blend of history, science, literature, philosophy, and call-to-action, A World Without Summer is a marvel of a book, one I would recommend to anyone who enjoys being astonished.” —Dashka Slater, award-winning author of The 57 Bus and Accountable