Mary Woodbury interviews Fiona Barker about her new picture book Setsuko and the Song of the Sea, out now.

I run Dragonfly.eco, an exploration of world eco-fiction, which includes a database of hundreds of novels about humanity’s impact on our natural world, including the omnipresent climate disruption. Being a mother and aunt, I have often wondered how climate change will affect the next generations. It’s an interest that informs my writing and reading, and life’s work. My love for the great outdoors began with childhood, when my parents were forever showing us the world beyond walls, whether it was climbing the Appalachian hills in Eastern Kentucky, whenever we visited my mammaw and pappaw, or horseback riding in the desert when we visited relatives in Arizona. Dad used to take us four kids white-water rafting on the Wolf River when we got a little older, and when we moved to the Chicago area, that meant hiking the nearby woods and skiing every winter. I’m glad for this upbringing and still recall how I would constantly off lights and unused electricity to save energy when I was a teenager, when my activist self burgeoned as I knew we had to protect the planet around us.

When I was in college I wrote a story about a grade-school aged girl whose family moved from Chicago to northern Wisconsin. The girl had a hard time at first, because it was challenging to become accepted in her new community. She began noting the beautiful forest and creeks around her and imagined how they would have been in the old days. Using resources found around the property surrounding her new house, she built a wigwam and learned about the natural wilds of her area. I eventually gave the story to the kids in our family, and most recently a great-niece read it and loved it.

Later, after I began Dragonfly.eco, I was struck by something I read in Edan Lepucki’s short story “There’s No Place Like Home.” I talked with Edan back then, and we discussed how youth were in a stuck generation. By then, so many real-life and literary heroes of the “youngest generations” had rocked the world, including Vanessa Nakate, Greta Thunberg, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Bana Alabed, and Emma Gonzales. I thought it only fitting to add a new spotlight feature at Dragonfly, called Turning the Tide: The Youngest Generation, where each month I spotlight an article, review, or book geared toward children, teens, or young adult audiences.

Earlier this year I also published the novella Bird Song (pen: Clara Hume) a story about a young woman named Thelsie, from Chicago, who wakes up on a mysterious island and tries to figure out her surroundings. She meets two Greek sirens and a shipwrecked sailor as well as her mother, who had died in the previous year. Part eco-horror, part new myth, part romance, this novella is also a parable for climate change, and similar to my real-life experience, looks at ecological destruction resulting in climate change as something that started long ago.

My interests in how younger people are dealing with ecological destruction that they had no part in is one of the reasons I wanted to interview Fiona Barker about her beautifully illustrated Setsuko and the Song of the Sea. Being a big fan of Moana, I was thrilled to discover Setsuko–only Moana was about a young woman fighting against a curse from a demigod, while Setsuko is about a young girl who, like Moana, is drawn to the sea but learns about advocacy against ocean destruction. She meets a whale whose stories and songs inspire her to think about the beauty of the ocean and the threats that marine life faces. While the whale’s song appeals to her emotionally, she also discovers the amount of plastic waste found in the ocean, which inspires action.

I got the wonderful opportunity to chat with Fiona about her new children’s story.

Mary: Can you explain the inspiration behind Setsuko and the Song of the Sea?

Fiona: I think I’ve always been reasonably green. As a child 40 years ago I used to tour our village with my dad and a wheelbarrow collecting newspapers to recycle. But what really changed things was doing the Marine Conservation Society #PlasticFreeJuly where the challenge was to cut out a source of single use plastic everyday for a month. I learned a huge amount and have completely changed our whole family’s shopping habits and blog about my efforts to reduce our waste for Less Plastic UK. It got me thinking about consumption and waste in general.

Then I met Howard Gray, who illustrated my picture book Danny and the Dream Dog (Tiny Tree Children’s Books). I discovered he was a marine biologist, and I knew I had to write a story about the sea for him to illustrate because he’s a genius at drawing the sea. I was inspired to feature Setsuko because I had seen a documentary about the amazing Ama, female free divers. They’re incredible women who dive for shellfish without diving equipment, but their way of life is under threat. I knew I had to include an Ama in my story, and Setsuko was born. I’m absolutely thrilled that a percentage of the profit from sales of the book will go towards supporting the work of the Marine Conservation Society.

Mary: What kinds of climate change themes does your newest book have?

Fiona: My story is about respecting the world we live in. Specifically it’s about ocean plastic but also bigger themes of consumption and waste.

Got my copy of the brilliant 'Setsuko and the Song of the Sea' by @Fi_BGB and @hwigray! It's a beautiful thing. Twas an honour to write a short quote for the back cover. Available from bookshops now! 🐋🌈 pic.twitter.com/BSA3AaMRoL
— Karl Newson (@Karlwheel) May 7, 2021

Mary: You have written other ecologically aware picture books for children. What kind of feedback have you gotten so far?

Fiona: I was thrilled at the end of 2020 to win the illustrated book for children category of the Green Stories Writing competition with my story “The Doo-Da Hoo-Ha,” which addresses reducing waste at source by consuming less. I also self-published a picture book in 2016 called “Amelie and the Great Outdoors,” which encourages readers to get outside and engage with the natural world.

Mary: You’re a mother, too. What worries you about our future when it comes to our children?

Everything. In the west especially, we are living outside our means, consuming far more than our planet can sustainably provide. On a global level, climate change and global warming are the biggest threats of course. Just today on the radio I heard that European climate scientists have announced that 2020 equalled 2016 as the warmest year on record. The acceleration of thawing in permafrost in the Arctic Circle is a huge time bomb. Locally, I am obsessed with litter and run 3-4 times a week with a litter picker and bag, collecting it. Our children deserve to walk streets that are clean without having to step over cans, plastic bottles and, at the moment, discarded facemasks and gloves.

Mary: How do you think fiction, and, in your case, illustrated fiction, can help?

Fiona: Obviously, it’s about informing and educating children and parents about the issues but also, importantly, about solutions that they have direct control over.

Fiona Barker is the author of picture books Setsuko and the Song of the Sea and Danny and the Dream Dog, illustrated by artist and marine biologist Howard Gray. When not writing picture books, she can be found out plogging and occasionally blogging about litter and living a life less plastic.

Mary Woodbury (pen name Clara Hume) graduated with BAs in English and anthropology at Purdue University. She grew up in the United States, where her parents introduced her at an early age to hiking, climbing mountains, horseback riding, canoeing, white-water rafting, and camping—filling her with a deep respect for the wilderness. She now lives in Nova Scotia with her partner and two cats. As a curator at Dragonfly.eco, a site that explores world eco-fiction, she has interviewed several award-winning authors and built a database of over 800 novels. She also founded Moon Willow Press in 2009 and its newest imprint Dragonfly Publishing.