In Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Megan Clendenan spotlights the construction of Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which houses more than 580 million frozen seeds, “just in case” the world needs them. “Seeds are more than the foundation of our food./ They are history./ And they are the future,” writes Clendenan, author of other nonfiction titles including What Do We Eat? How Humans Find, Grow, and Share Food. PW spoke with the Vancouver-based writer about the power of cooperation, saving seeds, and finding hopeful solutions to the world’s challenges.

What inspired you to write about the Svalbard Seed Vault?

I learned about the seed vault almost by accident. I listened to a podcast, actually, and that’s when I first heard about it. I was astounded that someone had built a vault in a mountain to protect seeds. Ever since I was a child, I’ve grown vegetables. It was always a thing that I enjoyed doing, and I still do—even when I lived in an apartment, I grew something. But even though I was interested in food and growing, I never really thought about the security of seeds. And so after hearing about the vault, I was inspired to learn more. The more I learned, honestly, the more in awe I was of all the farmers and gardeners and people who work to save seeds, and I really wanted to share that story with young readers.

What are some of the themes that you hope readers will take away from the book?

I wanted to share a hopeful story about the power of cooperation and collaboration, and to show how connected we all are to seeds and to food. I think the seed vault is such a wonderful, positive example of people working together for the greater good. There’s climate change and so many ongoing conflicts in the world today, but this is a great example of what can happen when people work together, especially via international collaboration. I would like young readers to come away thinking they can take action. They can save a seed. They can learn about food. These are small things that even a six-year-old can do to just feel a little more connected to food.

How did you go about researching this book? Did you get to visit the seed vault? And are there any facts or any research that didn’t make it into the book that you wish you could have included?

When I first started researching it was during Covid, so I couldn’t go to Svalbard, even though that would have been amazing. I started with online research and I did a lot of looking around and reading, and then I reached out to one of the people who had started the seed vault. His name is Dr. Cary Fowler, and he was one of the influential people working on its development and construction. He agreed to do an interview with me, and so I was able to speak with him directly and get quite a bit of information. I took myself on a lot of virtual tours of Svalbard and the vault. Anyone can—they have a couple of links online where you can go inside the vault and see it, so that was a great way for me to research. One day, I would love to go there.

What I really loved learning about was all the seed varieties. There are thousands of different kinds of apples and thousands of different kinds of pumpkins, just as an example. And the variety of what they look like—the colors, the shapes, the sizes—you could do a whole book just on that. I think that would be pretty neat for kids to see, because we see only a few varieties in our local grocery stores. I loved learning about all those. And there is some of that in the book, but there are just only so many spots in the book to have that information.

How did working on this book change your understanding of crop biodiversity and sustainability and the future of food? What motivates you to write about environmental topics for kids?

The biggest takeaway I got from this book is thinking about seeds in a bit of a different light. This idea that every seed is a story is something that even though I knew, I hadn’t really internalized myself, and I really love that idea. If you think about books, these are ways of preserving ideas and knowledge, and seeds are another way of preserving our history over time and thinking about people growing certain types of food over generations.

When I was in school, I studied urban planning and sustainability. I try to live my life in a way where I’m growing my own food and thinking about what packaging I’m buying and what transportation I’m using and all those kinds of things. There are a lot of cool and hopeful solutions. I know that can be hard to see because the world can be really challenging right now, but it makes me happy to see that there are solutions. I like to share those with younger readers, but not in a scary way. Maybe young readers are going to be the next ones to have the ideas.

Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault by Megan Clendenan, illus. by Brittany Cicchese. Charlesbridge, $17.99 Oct. ISBN 978-1-62354-480-5