Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against the Apocalypse [Paperback]

Finalist for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Finalist for the ASLE Ecocritical Book Award
One ofTimes 100 Must-Read Books of 2024
Named one ofThe New York Times15 New Books to Read in March

Award-winning author and critic Emily Raboteau crafts a powerfully moving meditation on race, climate, environmental justiceand what it takes to find shelter.

Lessons for Survivalis a probing series of pilgrimages from the perspective of a mother struggling to raise her children to thrive without coming undone in an era of turbulent intersecting crises.

With camera in hand, Raboteau goes in search of birds, fluttering in the air or painted on buildings, and city parks where her children may safely play while avoiding pollution, pandemics, and the police. She ventures abroad to learn from Indigenous peoples, and in her own family and community, she discovers the most intimate examples of resilience. Raboteau bears witness to the inner life of Black womanhood, motherhood, the brutalities and possibilities of cities, while celebrating the beauty and fragility of nature. This innovative work of reportage and autobiography stitches together multiple stories of protection, offering a profound sense of hope.

Emily Raboteauwrites at the intersection of social and environmental justice, race, climate change, and parenthood. Her previous books areSearching for Zion(2013), winner of an American Book Award and finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the cult classic novel,The Professors Daughter(2005). Since the release of the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, she has focused on writing about the climate crisis. A contributing editor atOrion Magazineand a regular contributor toThe New York Review of Books, Raboteaus essays have recently appeared inNew Yorker, theNew York Times,New Yorkls&