Healer of the Water Monster

“Water is life.” (Young 161)

When eleven-year-old Nathan goes to visit his grandma to research the benefits of traditional versus commercial corn, escaping a complicated situation of recently divorced parents and his father’s new relationship, he ends up spending the summer at her mobile home on the Navajo reservation. There, he meets a Water Monster, Pond, a Holy Being from a Navajo Creation Story. Pond is connected to a pond of water on the Navajo Reservation that has been poisoned by local uranium mining, and consequently he gets radiation sickness, with Nathan tasked to find a remedy. There is a hopeful ending to this novel rather than a happy ending, as Pond does pass away, but his newborn sister takes over his body of water and thereby saves the environment. Although dealing with his grief for Pond, Nathan becomes a hero and the local ecosystem gets a new beginning. An important subplot on Nathan’s uncle Jet is worth mentioning as it involves war trauma, PTSD, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts. This subplot does, however, relevantly mirror Pond’s healing and connects to traditional healing ways.

This book powerfully describes the effects of extracting minerals on Indigenous communities in the United States, specifically Brian Young’s own Navajo community. Through the figure of Pond, child readers empathize with nature and climate. As a Holy Being, Pond is part of the ecosystem, a part of nature. His slow decay caused by his radiation sickness, clearly described as the slow violence caused by the mining, represents biodiversity loss. Not only is Pond a rare being that is dying, but all of the animals and beings connected to life in his pond also pass due to his decay. Pond’s inevitable death teaches child readers a form of climate grief, as they learn to empathize and identify with the sweet Water Monster and at the same time learn how to cope with the unavoidable destruction of nature. This grief is a powerful but heavy dose of reality that teaches children about the severity of the results of extractivism, while providing hope for the future, emphasizing a potential for positive change. Interconnectedness is a key term for this novel as Young connects all of nature, showing how animals, soil, water, humans, and Holy Beings all influence the ecosystem together, revealing the importance of treasuring nature, and fighting the human destruction of nature. In the Author’s Note, Young writes: ‘Global warming is a topic I don’t outwardly name but constantly reference. Often Native Homelands, not only mine, deal with the tangible effects of global warming’ (354). While not a direct topic in the novel, the results of extractivism highlighted by Young, biodiversity loss and ecological destruction, do cause global warming. Young’s novel critiques the power the USA has in reverting the effects of climate change, specifically focusing on water health and activism regarding this. He emphasizes the power of Indigenous communities, thereby empowering young readers, and specifically Navajo children, to think about how they can fight against the effects of global warming and capitalist abuse of environment, the consequences of which are so visible in the Anthropocene.

©2026 ClimateLit (Sietse Hagen)

Additional Resources:

Publisher: Heartdrum - HarperCollins, 2021

Audience: Ages 8-13

ISBN: 9780062990419

Pages: 362

Format: Novels

Topics: Anthropocene, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Grief, Extractivism, Fossil Fuels, Habitat Preservation, Indigenous-led Climate Action, Interconnectedness, Interspecies Kinship, Pond Ecosystems, Slow Violence, Water Pollution