About the Book and Author
A fantasy story by Lauren James about three teenagers who join forces and use their superpowers to help to save the planet.
Gabrielle is a climate-change activist who shoots to fame when she becomes the first teenager to display a supernatural ability to grow plants from her skin. Hester is the millionaire daughter of an oil tycoon and the face of the family business. Theo comes from a long line of fishermen, but his parents are struggling to make ends meet.
On the face of it, the three have very little in common. Yet when Hester and Theo join Gabrielle and legions of other teenagers around the world in developing the strange new “Greenfingers” power, it becomes clear that to use their ability for good, they’ll need to learn to work together. But in a time of widespread corruption and greed, there are plenty of profit-hungry organizations who want to use the Greenfingers for their own ends. And not everyone would like to see the Earth saved…
Lauren James is the twice Carnegie-nominated British author of many Young Adult novels, including The Loneliest Girl in the Universeand The Quiet at the End of the World. She is also a Creative Writing lecturer, freelance editor and screenwriter.
Her books have sold over a hundred thousand copies worldwide, been translated into five languages and shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and STEAM Children’s Book Award.
Her other novels include The Next Together series, the dyslexia-friendly novella series The Watchmaker and the Duke and serialised online novel An Unauthorised Fan Treatise. Visit her website to find out more about this gifted young writer.
You can read our book review of The Reckless AfterLife of Harriet Stoker here.
Book Review
It really enlightened me to the ways in which we can stop climate change and what could happen if certain things continue
I really enjoyed reading Green Rising because it was both enlightening and enjoyable. I like the way the book was informative but how Lauren James put a fantasy twist on the somewhat serious subject. It really enlightened me to the ways in which we can stop climate change and what could happen if certain things continue.
One of the things I really liked about the book was the characters. I felt that throughout the book I got to know them really well and that was helped by the way each chapter usually focused on a different one of the three main characters and told their feelings and thoughts in those chapters.
Hester is a business woman by blood and even though she’s only young she already has her own team and project at her dads company Dalex. Theo is a family man and is working for Dalex in order to help is parents with bills after the damage to his dads fishing boat which was the way he earns the money. Gabrielle is the first Green Finger to show her powers and decides to use them for the good of the Earth.
One day Gabrielle Ventura begins to sprout plants. After her lots of teens from every corner of the globe begin to grow their own variety of plants. As the first Green Finger Gabrielle gathers a large following of Green Fingers on social media and they begin to protest for change to help the environment. Meanwhile Hester Daleport hires a group of select Green Fingers to help her on her project at her Dad’s oil drilling company Dalex. At first all the group do is cause havoc and mayhem but then Hester and Theo find their powers work stronger together and their skills begin to develop. When the make contact with Gabrielle they decide to use their team and her following to make a change for the better and hatch a plan to save planet Earth.
I would recommend this page-turning book to anyone who likes action and adventure over the age of 12 because of serious topics and a small amount of mild language. The way the book was written made me want to just keep reading because it was really exciting and I wanted to find out what the characters would get up to next. I also really liked the sections of the book that were text messages, tweets, documents and news articles because it showed exactly what the public thought of it and all the other smaller things people were doing relating to and with the Green Fingers powers.
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Reviewer Profile
- Name: Isabelle
- Age: 12 years
- Likes: football, climbing tress and writing stories
- Dislikes: mushroom and Star Wars
- Favourite Book: Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
- Favourite Song: Prince by Taylor Swift
- Favourite Film: Cheaper by the Dozen
