Author Darcie Little Badger has her protagonists, Nina and a cottonmouth snake named Oli, tackle big, real world problems in her new Young Adult novel, A Snake Falls To Earth. She told NPR's Leila Fadel that young people are feeling climate anxiety acutely, so it was important to her to make it a part of this story, even though it takes place in a fantastical world. She does have a PhD in oceanography and a bachelors in geo-science, so understands the stakes really well. But, she doesn't want her readers to walk away feeling hopeless.