Think Like a Forest cover art

Think Like a Forest

Letters to my Children from a Changing Planet
Pre-order: Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Think Like a Forest

By: Ben Rawlence
Pre-order: Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Pre-order Now for £27.99

Pre-order Now for £27.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

How to parent in a climate emergency? Through a series of inspiring letters written to his daughters, climate activist and writer Ben Rawlence finds new ways to open conversations and navigate the uncertainty of our changing times together

Writer and activist Ben Rawlence first began writing to his eldest daughter before she was born, expressing his fears at what it would mean to raise children in a rapidly changing world where the very concept of the future was in jeopardy. Twelve years later, dozens of these letters to his two daughters tell the story of one father's attempt to navigate the fundamental contradiction of raising children within an economic system that seems hostile to all life, and not only humans.

Climate change poses a fundamental challenge to parenting. What knowledge should we pass on? What future are we preparing our children for? Generations risk being divided by an elephant in the room that neither side wants to name: the climate.

By turns dark, hilarious and always bracingly honest, the letters to his daughters offer relatable and inspiring insights about parenting in perilous times. Ultimately Rawlence (and his daughters) show us that learning to see once again through the eyes of a child might hold the answer to how we parent, how we live and even the future of our planet.

© Ben Rawlence 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Environment Future Studies Letters & Correspondence Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Parenting & Families Relationships Science Social Sciences

Critic reviews

Climate change is an intergenerational issue: an existential crisis we are bequeathing to our descendants. Ben Rawlence's letters to his daughters grapple with questions of injustice and adaptation - but also celebrate the joy and hope and wonder of small children. Beautiful and thought-provoking (Cal Flyn)
A delightful and important book. Every parent should read this and consider it as a handrail for climate conscious and compassionate 21st-century parenting. Having loved every page I have now begun writing letters to my own young daughters to emulate Ben’s piercing insight and heartfelt example (Merlin Hanbury-Tenison)
How do you find the right path when no one has come this way before? This book is a thoughtful, tender way to make a map of new and frightening territory. (Jay Griffiths)
Humane, honest and painfully true, Rawlence’s letters to his daughters neatly encapsulate the systemic nature of our current crisis of values, while also shedding valuable light on where we might go and how we might thrive if we can only find a way to change them. (Owen Sheers)
Both a moving elegy for our suffering planet, and a persuasive call to arms to the next generation of possible changemakers. I loved this book, its threads perfectly calibrated with a masterful simplicity of tone and epistolary directness. A gift, not just for the author’s daughters, but for all of us who want to replace ecocide anxiety with the glimmerings of a better future. Rawlence is too rigorous a journalist to suggest this will be easy, and too honest a writer to be anything but convincing. (Sophy Roberts)
As moving as it is illuminating… a book like no other, a story told through letters written by a loving father to his young daughters as they grow up in an increasingly uncertain world. (Mark Lynas)
These are beautifully written, endearing and hopeful letters which made me laugh and cry... It’s a book for all ages about conversations we all need to have -- and if you don’t know how to start them, there’s a very helpful manual at the back! (Jane Davidson, author of #FUTUREGEN: Lessons from a Small Country)
A great taboo of our time - how to talk with our children about the broken world they’re growing up into - is coming to an end. This book marks a notable moment in that necessary transformation. The sensitivity with which Ben Rawlence approaches the topic, in these letters, is lovely to behold. Not least, because he sets out here how this is very much about listening to the young, too. (Emeritus Prof. Rupert Read, author of PARENTS FOR A FUTURE)
No reviews yet