A ten-year-old girl, a council of animals beneath California redwoods, and a crow determined to make humanity listen give Crows Calling an unusual way into the climate conversation. Bruce McConnell places young Luz between the human and nonhuman worlds, where bears, coyotes, trees, chickens, and other “planimals” have their own memories, grievances, and ideas about what should happen next. By combining a coming-of-age story with a cross-species debate over environmental responsibility, the novel approaches ecological questions through characters who quite literally have different stakes in the future of the planet.
An Inspiring Journey into our Better Natures
Literary/Eco-Fiction
Date Published: 10-01-2025
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Ten-year-old Luz sets out on an overnight camping trip, accompanied by her spiritual mentor. Peering through a canopy of California redwoods, Luz witnesses a council of animals confronting the menace of climate change. Led by a lustrous—and talkative—American Crow named Koro, the animals weigh their options. Some, like Koro, want to collaborate with humans. Others doubt humanity’s good intentions. The conversation compels young Luz, innately in tune with the natural world, to fight passionately in its defense.
At once a work of fact-based activism and a moving coming-of-age, Crows Calling immerses the reader in a richly-drawn family and community who, despite their differences, decide to dedicate their lives to the care of Grandmother Earth. They are not alone. Rather, they are accompanied by a colorful cast of savvy planimals—bears, coyotes, trees, and even chickens—with long memories and ancient ways of healing. However, some damage cannot be undone. Natural disasters, public apathy, and greed threaten everything that Luz and her friends are working for. Can the cross-species alliance find unity and resolve the climate crisis?
Before we go any further, I really should introduce myself. I am Koro—a lustrous female American Crow. Surely, when strolling in woods or along an urban lane, you have admired my family’s elegant, iridescent plumage and thrilled to our melodious song. You know of our prodigious memory, of our cleverness spearing hapless grubs from sodden logs with a favored twig.
The glint you see in my ebony eye is a tear shining for my grandmother—the earthly incarnation of generosity, whose bounteous lands and waters make room for every new arrival. Of late, however, one family—relative newcomers—has been pushing her limits, leaving their garbage everywhere and abusing the other guests. They run their noisy engines at all hours. Noxious smoke belches from their cooking fires. Every day, more and more of them come, crowding into other families’ spaces, destroying the homes of many of my friends.
Recognizing our Crow persistence, Grandmother Earth called us to help her get those inconsiderate tenants to clean up their act. Peering into the chasm of the coming Meltdown, I am proud to be on precious Grandmother’s team. My cawcus is responsible for majestic Northern California. The land we cover is a patchwork sprawl of asphalt and forest, garlic and strawberries, oranges and avocados, cattle and sheep raised sustainably and otherwise, bears guttering in their occult tongue, sweet jasmine brandishing her shameless perfume, and sixteen million busy humans.
Through wildfires, drought, floods, extreme heat, even earthquakes, Grandmother is pleading directly with humans. Some hear her message. Take Makah Andrews, professor of International Environmental Policy at Monterey University. Makah’s one of the good ones, trying to use the system to turn itself around. That’s the aim of “Team Grandmother”—a successful turnaround.
What’s that I hear? Ah, please allow me to introduce my most trusted teammate, Ursula, a beautiful California Black Bear who lives around here. Ursula, tell the folks what we’ve been hearing from other nonhuman parts of the natural world, from other planimals, as we call ourselves. Our fellow creatures are getting nervous. Some are angry. That’s why we’re organizing a Congress. …
Crows Calling does more than give animals human voices; it gives them positions within an argument. Koro favors cooperation with humanity while other creatures are less convinced that people can—or will—change, creating disagreement inside the natural world rather than presenting it as a single harmonious chorus. Luz then becomes more than an observer. Her encounter with that council asks what a child who recognizes the urgency of environmental damage can do when the adults and institutions around her have their own competing priorities.
McConnell also builds his environmental themes into family and community life rather than confining them to an abstract crisis. The supplied description identifies natural disasters, public apathy, and greed as obstacles facing Luz and her allies, while the opening chapter immediately establishes Koro as a narrator with wit, frustration, memory, and a distinctly crow-centered view of human behavior. That combination of activism, coming-of-age, and nonhuman perspective gives the novel a structure designed to make ecological questions personal.
This is a strong match for readers interested in eco-fiction that places environmental questions inside a character-driven story. The talking animals and trees may also appeal to those who enjoy fiction that crosses the boundary between the everyday and the allegorical, while Luz's role gives the larger ecological conflict a coming-of-age dimension. Readers intrigued by stories in which the natural world has agency—and is allowed to challenge human assumptions directly—will find plenty to consider in Koro's proposed alliance between species.
A leading player on global peace and security issues at the intersection of governments, business and civil society for over thirty years, McConnell is the former President and CEO of the EastWest Institute. He serves on the board of The Stimson Center, in support of peace, security, justice, and prosperity for all living beings.
From 2009 to 2013, McConnell served in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he was Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity. He was a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team. From 2000-2008, he created, built and sold two consultancies that provided strategic advice to clients in the technology, business and government sectors. In 1999-2000, McConnell led the International Y2K Cooperation Center, which was sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank.
McConnell holds a Master of Public Administration from the Evans School for Public Policy at the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Sciences from Stanford University. He serves as a business advisor to various technology companies.
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Koro's opening narration makes the premise of Crows Calling clear: humans are not the only ones entitled to an opinion about what happens to the planet. By allowing a crow, a bear, a child, and an expanding community of “planimals” to participate in the same environmental conversation, the novel shifts climate change away from statistics alone and toward questions of responsibility, cooperation, and who gets heard. Luz's challenge is not simply recognizing that something is wrong; it is deciding what to do after the natural world has asked her directly to become part of the solution.
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