The most recommended books about drought

I love the main character, Arianna, and her depth. She struggles to contain the lightning spirit inside of her… and fails… and succeeds… and tries again. Plus, her mission is noble: to end a drought and save her people! Which she picked up after the death of her father as it was his quest.

Noble quests, a well-developed world with unique cultures, and rich writing connected to a spirited character hook me every time.

This speculative dystopia about drought-ruined California is equal parts lyrical gut-punch and surrealist adventure story. Main characters Luz and Ray set up residence in an abandoned celebrity mansion, subsisting on whatever they can scavenge. Their precarious existence is upended when they cross paths with a toddler, and the trio sets off into the Dune Sea in search of a life that offers more than mere survival. A warning: this is not a cool breeze of a read. But if you’re curious about the psychic impact of prolonged heat, thirst, and desperation, Watkins offers a masterclass on the grimy reality of human resilience in a hostile world of our own making.

One can’t read about families in crisis and not confront the devastation and stigma of mental illness. I think this theme resonates with many people, who are close to someone dealing with this illness, including me. In Where the Watermelons Grow, the consequences of mental illness in a family are stark as seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Della, whose mother is on the verge of a serious breakdown. Della is thrust into new responsibilities for her baby sister and on the family farm. Despite this, Della is still a child who believes in magic and searches for a cure to heal her mother. Of course, there is no magical cure, but there is magic in understanding and acceptance.

Drought has hit a Malawi village and everyone’s crops are failing. Fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba figures out how to bring electricity to the village by building a windmill out of scraps from a junkyard. I love this story because it highlights the importance of education, and along with determination, William was able to build this windmill bringing electricity which helped lift this community up and bring hope. Education is the best way to lift communities up from poverty. Elizabeth Zunon provides gorgeous illustrations that enhance the text.  

We’ve been told ‘the market knows best’ for a long time, and we’re now seeing the economic, political, and environmental breakdown which comes from arranging society around the market’s diktat. Worse, we’ve been here before.

In Late Victorian Holocausts, the late historian Mike Davis documents the most shocking historical consequences of organising societies to please the market. In the heyday of the British Empire, London’s obsession with ‘leaving it to the market’ extended to letting profit dictate who should eat and who should starve.

After the British stripped away traditional social networks on which the majority could depend in times of crisis, people found that ‘the market’ demanded food be shipped from where it was needed, to where there was money. The loss of millions of lives to famine was not the result of ‘backwardness’ and ignorance, but of ‘modernity’ and the market. 

This nonfiction book is not only dear to my heart, I can also honestly say it changed my life.

It’s about the only Federal Emergency School ever created. Built for the children of farm workers displaced by the Dust Bowl in 1940, it tells of School Superintendent Leo B. Hart’s ingenuity and steadfast devotion to children who faced seemingly insurmountable hardships and discrimination as occupants of the migrant camp outside Bakersfield, California that inspired John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

I taught at this school, now known as Sunset, for many years, and I kept a note in my lesson planner that read What would Leo B. Hart do? 

This nonfiction book is jam-packed with astonishing facts and captivating personalities from the time of the Dust Bowl.

The disasters were many and varied during the 1930s on America’s Great Plains. “The weather might display seven different moods in a year, and six of them were life-threatening. Droughts, blizzards, grass fires, hailstorms, flash floods, and tornadoes…”

Not to mention the dust storms: “thick like coarse animal hair…with an edge like steel wool.” At least two monster “black dusters” traveled 2,000 miles (3,220 kilometers), taking topsoil from the midwest all the way to Washington DC.

The impact on society was terrible, but brought about great change in the country’s approach to conservation. This book is excellent for writers. Having read it helped me write more truthfully (I hope) about disasters in my fiction.

Historically, California native plants were often grown in European gardens before they were accepted into California gardens. Now they are being grown in California for their beauty and frequent drought tolerance. Here you will see photos of plants in garden landscapes with information about the regions in which they will grow, their needs, and their care. 

This book is different in perspective from the other ones on my list, since it focuses on climate change caused drought and the actions individual human beings might have to resort to in the face of the stresses of the environment and a corrupt political world. Yet this is an engaging climate change-related thriller, more at the micro-level. Ex-Marine Martin Makepeace is faced with dire choices as he has to save his loved ones in a world where water has become an impossible scarce resource…

This novel considers what will happen when the Southwest runs out of water, a very real possibility, especially with climate change, and something I care about as a Utah resident.

It pulls you into the action right away and keeps you on your toes until the very end, weaving together the narratives of a few different characters, including a journalist, a refugee from Texas, and a henchman (aka “the water knife”) who’s paid to destroy rival water supplies.

An alum of Oberlin College (like me!), Paolo Bacigalupi is a master of telling engaging stories about possible futures defined by climate change. I highly recommend this thoughtful novel and his other books!