Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan for Rewilding Every City on Earth

by Steve Mushin, Steve Mushin (Illustrator)

Overview

Join maverick inventor Steve Mushin as he tackles climate change with an avalanche of mind-bending and scientifically plausible inventions to rewild cities and save the planet. Jump into his brain as he designs habitat-printing robot birds and water-filtering sewer submarines, calculates how far compost cannons can blast seed bombs (over half a mile), brainstorms biomaterials with scientists and engineers, studies ecosystems, and develops a deadly serious plan for cities of the future. Ultrawild is a tour de force of extreme problem-solving for kids and teens (and anyone else) who love big ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765647073
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/09/2025
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	11.13(w) x 13.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	11 - 12 Years

About the Author

Steve Mushin is an industrial designer, artist, and inventor who collaborates with scientists and engineers to solve perplexing problems. Steve has exhibited large-scale design drawings and models around Australia and in Japan. He works between Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. He has won several awards for his work including the British Council's Big Green Idea Award and an Australian Design Honours award for his work in sustainable futures thinking. Ultrawild is Steve's debut book.

Steve Mushin is an industrial designer, artist, and inventor who collaborates with scientists and engineers to solve perplexing problems. Steve has exhibited large-scale design drawings and models around Australia and in Japan. He works between Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. He has won several awards for his work including the British Council's Big Green Idea Award and an Australian Design Honours award for his work in sustainable futures thinking. Ultrawild is Steve's debut book.

Editorial Reviews

2025-08-16
An industrial designer brainstorms strategies for sustainably transforming our cities and our world.

Mushin argues that pondering “ridiculous ideas can actually be INCREDIBLY SENSIBLE,” noting that doing so encourages thinking outside the box. Accordingly, he takes a current theory that prehistoric megafauna actually had a direct, major influence on their habitats and runs with it. Among other examples, he proposes an urban “Megafauna Emulator” that creates and poops out “compost cannonballs” (with aerodynamic toffee coatings), rooftop gardens guarded by chickens that recycle food scraps to create nutrient-rich poo collected by robotic dung beetles, and flying bicycles lifted by “biogas booster pants.” “Everything in this book,” Mushin writes, “is THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE” and if implemented would not only save vanishing species, but would “CRUSH CLIMATE CHANGE like a Matchbox car in a vise.” Readers may find some of his proposals hard to absorb, since he insists on cramming every oversize page with Rube Goldberg–style diagrams or cutaway views of zany factories and devices, and the work is rife with dense bursts of hand-lettered narrative. Still, the urgency of his message that we are teetering on the brink of catastrophe comes through loud and clear—as does his fundamental optimism that we can still pull off a save. Urging readers to work on “ludicrously brilliant new ideas” of their own, he closes with a flurry of “Invention Starter” prompts. The small line-drawn cartoon figures in his illustrations have skin the color of the page.

Silly fun with a serious purpose. (bibliography, glossary, index, afterword)(Graphic nonfiction. 10-13)

Kirkus Reviews

"The author does not talk down to young readers, who will be drawn in by the intricate illustrations of contraptions and the occasionally gross and gory elements of the inventions. Rather, the book invites readers to join the STEAM design process, encouraging ideas that seem out of this world. . . An essential addition to middle and high school libraries, this graphic novel is a green how-to manual for 2025."—starred, School Library Journal

From the Publisher