Franke is a designer who started out blogging a few years ago when she and her husband decided to sell their SUV and go carless. Her blog posts combine great illustrations with an almost comic-like personal story backed by the facts. The blog started to get a lot of attention which led to a book, Bothered By My Green Conscience (New Society Publishers 2009) and a growing reputation as an environmentalist.

Franke’s use of personal experience to tell stories and distribute them via social media demonstrates the power of viral story telling to drive change on a global basis. As I write this, Franke is in Copenhagen for the World Climate Summit.

Franke’s essays are illustrated guides to her process of changing internally and externally- we literally see into the conscious and unconscious thought process as she decides to take real action in dealing with the personal effects of climate change. Not content to simply change lightbulbs and stop drinking bottled water, Franke (with her husband) sells her SUV, rips up her driveway and plants a garden (battling a confused bureaucracy in the process) and writes a moving letter to her unborn grandchildren, a letter bemoaning in advance our pitiful lack of effort to improve a world we’re destroying.

The essays must be seen to be appreciated. Combining text, illustration and collage, they express the messiness of creativity and the beauty of action. This really is a book to give to your friends and family. Though we’ve never met in person, Franke and I are friends, separated by 80 miles of Lake Ontario water. We’ve been corresponding for several years now and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing these essays appear on her blog. When the book arrived in my mail I realized that they were deeper and more thought-provoking when revisited in this format.

(This review also appears in my other blog, Burner Trouble)