All the Water in the World

Thematically connecting to The Social and Emotional Impacts of Climate Change, water dominates the life of every character in All the Water in the World and is thus the novel’s central motif. It changes the landscape in mere moments, it can carry pathogens that poison and harm characters, and it’s the main way they travel across the US. Clean water is scarce and precious.

Nonie introduces herself by saying that she can “feel” the water, and this is how she describes her ability to physically sense the approach of storms. She keeps the Water Logbook, where she records all the forms of water she encounters; this includes weather types, and which bodies of water are drinkable or safe to enter.

Climate change brings disastrous flooding, which has swept away human-built infrastructure and reformed the natural world. As they prepare to leave New York, Nonie looks down at the streets and buildings that the sudden rise in sea level has submerged. Even the Hudson River, formally a major body of water, has been subsumed, simply becoming a current. This emphasizes that while water gives life, it’s changeable and uncontrollable, more powerful than people. Nonie’s sister,

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