Green Boy is an imaginative and culturally revealing 200 page fantasy for children written by the highly acclaimed and award winning novelist Susan Cooper and first published in 2002. Twelve-year-old Trey and seven-year-old Lou, who does not speak, cross the barrier between two worlds, that of their island in the Bahamas, and a land called Pangaia, and play a mysterious role in restoring the natural environment in both places. The natural habitat of their Bahaman island is being threatened by foreign developers, while the world of Pangaia is a dystopian extrapolation of environmentally destructive trends. The world has become a large sprawling city shrouded in smog, Run-away genetic experiments have unbalanced nature, and the government has degenerated into a repressive police state. People concerned about the environment are forced to live in the underground. They know about the window that opens at rare times between the worlds, and they have plans for Tray and Lou. This short novel shows another side of Susan Cooper, the celebrated author of award winning children's fantasy. The view of nature depicted in the work is informed by the Gaia hypothesis, and the struggle between good and evil takes the political form of a conflict between those who want to own and exploit the land and those who want to harmonize with it and preserve its blessings.
