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.
"A cinematic, riveting account of a relatively unknown geological event that changed the course of the world." —The Washington Post
"Nicholas Day excels at pointing out connections, ironies and paradoxes to young readers, and in A World Without Summer he skillfully presents the hard science and long-buried emotions around this disaster....Sharp and vivid." —The New York Times
"Day crafts a remarkable nonfiction narrative that jumps forward and backward through time and across the globe." —The Horn Book, starred review
"Each element—Tambora, Shelley, the current climate crisis—is seemingly disparate but brought together brilliantly, made particularly urgent by the interspersed chapters directly addressing the reader." —The Bulletin, starred review
"A World Without Summer is a dramatic, enlightening work of nonfiction." —Shelf Awareness, starred review
"[A] multifaceted narrative that illustrates how natural disasters affect climate change." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“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