What Is Cli-Fi? A Teacher's Guide to Climate Fiction in the Middle Grade Classroom
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If you've searched for cli-fi books for middle school and ended up on a list that blended YA dystopias, adult novels, and picture books with no guidance on how to teach any of them, you're not alone. Cli-fi — short for climate fiction — is one of the fastest-growing genres in middle grade literature, but teacher-facing resources haven't caught up yet.
This guide is for the ELA, science, and humanities teachers looking for books that take students' climate questions seriously without tipping into despair. You'll come away with a clear answer to what is cli-fi, why it belongs in middle school classrooms, and five climate fiction middle grade novels worth putting in front of your students this year.
What is Cli-Fi?
Cli-fi (short for climate fiction) is a genre of fiction that engages directly with climate change — its causes, its consequences, and the human and more-than-human stories unfolding inside it. The term was coined by journalist Dan Bloom in 2007 and has since moved from a niche science-fiction subcategory into its own recognized genre, with dedicated shelves in bookstores, university syllabi, and increasingly, middle school classrooms.
A working definition, since teachers often ask me for one:
Cli-fi is fiction in which climate change is not the backdrop, but the story.
A novel set during a heatwave isn't automatically cli-fi. A novel in which a heatwave changes what the characters want, fear, or believe they can do — that's cli-fi.
Cli-fi takes many shapes. Some books are set in near-future worlds recognizably like ours; others imagine further-out climate futures. Some are quiet and domestic; others are action-forward. What they share is a willingness to let climate change be a real force inside the story — not a problem to be solved in the final chapter, but a condition the characters live inside.
If your students have asked you some version of "Is the planet going to be okay?" and you've felt the floor tilt a little under the question, cli-fi is a genre designed, in part, for that exact moment.
Why Cli-Fi Works in the Middle Grade Classroom
I taught special education in NYC public schools before I became an author, and one thing I learned fast is that middle schoolers can handle much more than we give them credit for — as long as we don't hand them something that feels like a lecture disguised as a novel. Cli-fi, at its best, doesn't lecture. It imagines. Here's why the genre lands with grades 4 through 8:
It meets kids where they already are.
By middle school, students have absorbed a lot of ambient climate information — much of it fragmentary, some of it frightening. Cli-fi gives that information a shape. Instead of carrying shapeless dread, students see characters their age navigate recognizable feelings inside a story that also gives them somewhere to go.
It builds literacy skills without flattening the subject.
Cli-fi novels are rich in the elements Common Core and state ELA standards ask students to practice: theme, inference, figurative language, character motivation, point of view. Climate settings tend to produce vivid imagery and layered symbolism, which makes these books unusually productive for close reading.
It bridges ELA and science.
Few genres cross-curricular as naturally. A science teacher working on NGSS standards around weather, ecosystems, and human impacts on Earth systems (MS-ESS3-3, MS-ESS3-4) can share an anchor text with the ELA teacher across the hall. That's rare, and it's valuable.
It supports social-emotional learning.
Climate anxiety is real in this age group, and the CASEL SEL framework increasingly names it as something schools should address. Cli-fi gives students language for feelings they often don't have words for yet — helplessness, grief, hope, agency — without requiring teachers to become counselors.
Cli-fi isn't a detour from the curriculum. It's one of the most efficient ways I know to hit literacy, science, and SEL goals inside a single unit.
5 Cli-Fi Books for Middle School Classrooms
Every title on this list has been vetted for middle grade readability (roughly grades 4–8), discussability in a classroom, and the kind of emotional texture that rewards close reading. These are listed in no particular order — except that I'm listing my own book first, because I want to be honest about what this post is and isn't.
1. The Ice House by Monica Sherwood (Grades 4–7)
Yes, this is my book. I'll keep the pitch short. The Ice House is about a girl named Louisa whose city has been locked in an unexplained worldwide freeze for months. Her father is working double firefighter shifts. Her mother is deep in grief over Louisa's grandmother. Her little brother needs more than she has to give. When her former best friend Luke is forced back into her life, the two of them build an ice house in the snow outside — and discover, inside it, a window to a possible future.
Teachers tell me the book lands because it doesn't ask kids to save the world. It asks what it means to stay connected, keep making things, and take care of the people in front of you when the future feels uncertain. The themes — grief, friendship, climate, agency — are exactly the ones middle schoolers are already wrestling with.
I've put together a free educator guide with CASEL-aligned SEL connections, CCSS ELA standards mapping, and discussion questions by theme. And this book page has everything else you might need: grade level, excerpt, and a form to inquire about a free classroom visit.
The Factory by Catherine Egan (Grades 4–6)
A fresh (2025) cli-fi novel with an airtight classroom hook. Thirteen-year-old Asher has grown up in a world wrecked by climate change, and when a government-run experiment at a place called The Factory offers a way to help his family financially, he takes it. Inside, he meets a diverse group of kids who are all there for the same reason — and who start suffering strange, escalating effects from whatever the adults are doing to them. They have to figure out the truth together. Egan builds a rich world of climate devastation and economic inequality without ever lecturing, and the pacing rewards readers who stay with the slower first section. Strong on inference, character motivation, and discussions about who pays the price in a climate-changed world. Ends on a cliffhanger, which adds an interesting element of discussion with your students.
Where the World Turns Wild by Nicola Penfold (Grades 4–7)
Juniper and her little brother Bear live inside a walled city where nature has been banished after the outbreak of a deadly, human-made disease. Most people seem content to stay behind the walls. Juniper and Bear aren't — they dream of escaping to the wild place outside, where their mother is. When scientists discover the siblings hold the key to fighting the disease, their lives change overnight, and they have to run. The book does two things well for classroom use: it gives students a vivid picture of what it means to cut humans off from nature, and it makes the sibling relationship the emotional engine of the story. Pairs beautifully with ecology units and conversations about what "wild" actually means.
Across the Risen Sea by Bren MacDibble (Grades 5–8)
Neoma and her best friend Jaguar live with their small community on the high ground left by the risen sea, "living gentle lives" among sea walls built from car frames and rocks. When strangers arrive unannounced, Neoma ends up on a solo mission across the flooded ocean to rescue Jag and uncover the truth. What makes this one stand out for classroom use: it imagines community after climate change, not during the crisis — which opens up a rich discussion question for middle schoolers. When the worst has already happened, does kindness or greed shape what comes next?
The Last Wild by Piers Torday (Grades 4–6)
A thought-provoking, action packed entry point — and a natural bridge to science class. In a world where animals no longer exist, twelve-year-old Kester Jaynes has been locked away in a home for troubled children. When he unexpectedly meets a flock of talking pigeons and a demanding cockroach, he's pulled into a journey to a wild place with a curious companion named Polly. It's an animal-ensemble story with real heart, and it invites the same questions NGSS asks students to consider about ecosystems, biodiversity, and species loss — just in a form kids actually want to read.
How to Use Cli-Fi in Your Classroom
Once you've chosen a text, the question becomes: what do I actually do with it? Here are four entry points drawn from conversations with ELA and science teachers using cli-fi novels as whole-class reads.
Pair one novel with one nonfiction article per week.
A cli-fi novel does emotional and imaginative work; a short article from a source like NASA Climate Kids or a state science agency grounds that work in evidence. Alternating between the two teaches students to hold fiction and data in the same hand.
Build a vocabulary of climate grief and climate agency.
Middle schoolers often don't have words for what they feel when they read these books. Ten minutes introducing terms like solastalgia (being homesick for a place that has changed around you) or agency (the capacity to act on what matters to you) gives students language that carries beyond the unit.
Use character decisions — not climate facts — as the close-reading anchor.
The point of a cli-fi novel isn't to teach climate science through fiction. It's to watch human beings make decisions under climate pressure. Why did this character do this here? What did they believe was possible? Questions like these open up both literary analysis and SEL.
End with a making project, not a test.
The strongest cli-fi units I've seen end with student-created work — a zine, a letter, a short story, a mural, a podcast episode. Cli-fi is a genre of imagination; assessing it through imagination lines up with what the genre is for.
If you want a fully mapped-out version, check out my free educator guide for The Ice House. You can adapt it to any cli-fi text on this list.
Bringing Cli-Fi Into Your Curriculum This Year
One of the things I didn't expect, when I left the classroom to write, was how much I'd end up talking to teachers again. The teachers I meet now are asking the same question I asked when I was teaching fifth grade in Brooklyn: where are the books that take my students' real questions seriously?
Cli-fi is one answer. Not the only one, but a good one — and one that gets stronger every year as more middle grade authors step into it. If you've been waiting for permission to build a unit around a climate fiction novel, consider this your permission slip.
A few places to go from here:
Start with one novel, not a whole unit. A single read-aloud or book club pick tells you a lot about how your students respond to the genre before you invest in a full unit.
Grab the free educator guide. The Ice House educator guide includes CASEL SEL connections, CCSS ELA standards alignment, discussion questions, and a sample unit map — use it for my book or adapt the framework to any cli-fi title on this list.
If you're thinking about career direction as much as curriculum, the teachers-considering-career-change guide on this site is a companion resource I built from my own transition out of the classroom. Curriculum work and career work tend to live close together for a lot of the teachers I talk to.
Read the companion post. I've also written a longer piece on why cli-fi works specifically for middle school readers, which goes deeper into the developmental case for the genre.
If you build a cli-fi unit this year, I'd genuinely love to hear about it. You can reach me through the contact page or subscribe to Sloppy Copy, where I write about the intersection of teaching, writing, and the hard-to-describe work of making things that matter.
Climate fiction is one of the few places in middle grade literature where the genre and the reader are asking the same question at the same time: what now? That's a rare alignment. It's worth bringing into your classroom.
FAQ
Q: What is cli-fi?
A: Cli-fi — short for climate fiction — is a genre of fiction in which climate change is a central force in the story rather than background scenery. It includes near-future, speculative, and realistic fiction in which characters live inside the emotional and practical realities of a changing climate.
Q. What grade level is cli-fi appropriate for?
A. Middle grade cli-fi is generally appropriate for grades 4 through 8, with individual titles varying. A Wolf Called Wander works well for grades 4–6; The Last Cuentista is better for grades 6–8. The Ice House sits in the middle, with a strong fit for grades 4–7.
Q. Is cli-fi too scary for middle schoolers?
A. Well-chosen cli-fi is not scarier than what students already absorb from news, social media, and conversations at home. What it adds is a structured emotional space, a through line, and characters who find ways to act. In my experience, students finish good cli-fi novels feeling less anxious, not more — because the book has given shape to something they were already carrying.
Q. How do I teach climate change through fiction?
A. Pair the novel with short, grade-level nonfiction (NASA Climate Kids, state environmental agency sites, age-appropriate news sources), focus close reading on character decisions under pressure, and close the unit with a student-made creative project rather than a traditional test.
