Tag Archives: environmental stewardship

An Earth-Bot’s Solution to Plastic Pollution by Russell Ayto

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This book highlights the challenge of pulling children’s eyes off of screens long enough to recognise and act on the crisis of plastic pollution in the oceans. Neo doesn’t want to stop playing his game long enough to clean up his room let alone the ocean which is steps from his front door. It takes visits from three different sea creatures begging for help and a trip underwater himself for him to appreciate the problem. Once motivated, Neo works with the ocean creatures to help clean up. The story wraps up with a call to action to use less plastic.

The strongest part of the book is the illustrations depicting the effects of plastic on ocean dwellers. Instead of depicting the ocean with waves, Ayto represents it as row upon row of plastic bottles.There is a jellyfish floating inside a plastic bag and a humpback whale ingesting over a hundred bottles unintentionally.

I found the earth-bot premise distracting. It seems that Neo wears a glass helmet with antennae because of his connection to his video game. But Grandpa, a former astronaut, wears something similar for no discernable reason. It would have made sense that once Neo was pulled away from the video game, the helmet would also have gone away to demonstrate his new focus.
There was a missed opportunity to provide more background information on ocean pollution. Overall this book would be a good introduction for young children when paired with other titles. Join the No-Plastic Challenge! A First Book of Reducing Waste by Scot Richie provides doable suggestions for kids to take action. One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of The Gambia by Miranda Paul provides an inspirational true story.

111 Trees, How One Village Celebrates the Birth of Every Girl, by Rina Singh, il. by Marianne Ferrer

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This lushly illustrated picture book focuses on Sundar, who grew up in a poor family, in a poor community, in a dry, hot region of India. His village continued the cultural traditions of celebrating the birth of boys while the birth of a girl was seen as a burden. After the childhood loss of his mother Sundar would hug trees for comfort. Working in the area’s marble mine as an adult gave him a view of it’s destructive practices and concern for the future of his village.  The loss of a daughter to dehydration inspired Sundar to promote the idea of planting 111 trees for each girl born. As village leader he eventually convinced villagers to join him in planting trees. Over many years the act of planting trees led to a renewal of the environment and an appreciation of girls within the community. It also improved the prosperity and quality of life for the villagers. The colorful illustrations enhance the tale based on a true story.  After the story are several pages with additional information about Sundar and the village as well as photographs of Sundar and the trees. The additional pages also have didactic information on gender inequality and eco-feminism not dispensed as charmingly as it was in the text of the story. This book could be used as a read-aloud for older students to start conversations about gender inequality and reclaiming the environment. The amount of text on each page of the story would make it a challenging read aloud for younger children. The additional pages of information are probably too text-rich for a typical elementary group read-aloud session.

Luz Sees The Light

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A graphic novel about a young girl, Luz, who lives in the city.  Luz decides that the old, abandon lot down the street is the perfect spot for a community garden and park.  She gathers friends and neighbors to help make the dream of a community park come true.
Sepia toned panels.  A bit preachy, but overall a good message about environmental stewardship. Practical advice on how to start a compost pile is also given in a seperate section at the end of the story.