The combined approaches of deep reading of text and in-depth learning follow the aim of involving students as motivated participants, working together collaboratively while preparing for and confronting the challenges of today and of times ahead, for example concerning the climate crisis as an inequality multiplier. From an ecocritical perspective, I examine in this chapter the role of setting of a literary text and the educational opportunities of an expanded understanding of what can be comprehended by ‘character’. Due to the Anthropocene epoch and supported by the affordances of visualizing the climate crisis in multimodal text, I argue that the conventional fixating on human characters in narrative—protagonism—must be supplemented by an increase in empathy for the dynamic of the environment, and the reciprocal relationship between humans and Earth Others. I explore Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin’s graphic novel Global (2023) as a multimodal text that offers the opportunity of rethinking the sharing of story in times of climate crisis, when both human and non-human nature can be seen as active protagonists. I argue that perspective-taking, empathy, resilience, critical literacy and outcome emotions can be understood as central to the educational challenge of rethinking deep reading for in-depth learning.