If a shipping container filled with 28,000 plastic ducks spilled into the Pacific Ocean, where would all those ducks go? Inspired by a real incident, this captivating and innovative look at the pollution crisis in our oceans follows one of the ducks as it is washed away on ocean currents, encountering plastic-endangered whales and sea turtles and passing through the giant floating island of marine debris known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. From the author-illustrator of the acclaimed Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover comes a highly accessible and graphically stylish picture book with an ultimately hopeful message about environmental issues and the state of our oceans. An end map documents the widely scattered journey of the real-life plastic ducks, showing where they have been found, as well as facts about the ways plastic is affecting various parts of the world.
pollution
Plasticus Maritimus: An Invasive Species
Inspired by biologist AnaPêgo’s life’s work, and filled with engaging science and colorful photographs, this foundational look at plastic pollution in the ocean explains why it is such an urgent contemporary issue.
Green Boy
Trey’s little brother, Lou, is different — he doesn’t speak and he suffers frightening seizures. But when he and Trey find themselves mysteriously transported to Pangaia, an alternative universe where pollution and over-development have all but destroyed nature, a militant underground environmental group greets him as the prophesied hero who will save their world. But to realize this prophecy, Lou must take Trey on a terrifying and dangerous mission, with much more at stake than the fate of Pangaia.
The Tomtes of Hilltop Farm
Jamie and Emily try to clean up Hilltop stream with help from their little Tomte friends. Tomtes are small creatures, who only children can see. They live in ancient woods and like to help people and animals. Hilltop Farm has not been thriving: crops are failing, the animals are badly behaved and Bella the cow is ill. Poor Farmer Robinson puts the farm up for sale. But Emily and Jamie are determined to save the farm, so they ask their friends the Tomtes for help. Together, the Tomtes and the children look after Bella, milk the goats and plant seeds. They pick wild berries, collect eggs and make cheese. Can they persuade Farmer Robinson not to sell the farm? This is the second book about the helpful Tomtes who live in Hilltop Wood.
The Paper Bag Prince
A wise old man who visits the town dump every day moves into an abandoned train there and watches as nature gradually reclaims the polluted land.
Supermoo!
Operating out of their Cowcave headquarters, Supermoo, a superheroine Holstein, and her trusty sidekick, Calf Crypton, battle the evil forces of pollution that are out to destroy the world.
Spud Sweetgrass
Suspended from school for cussing at a mean teacher, John “Spud”’ Sweetgrass at least still has his job selling french fries from a curbside “chip wagon.” But he notices that something stinks — literally. It’s the smell of rancid cooking oil at a polluted Ottawa beach. His suspicions aroused, Spud follows Dumper Stubbs, a creepy delivery man who services local restaurants and chip wagons. Spud gets angry when he sees Dumper living up to his name, dumping oil into a storm drain and causing terrible pollution in the river. When Spud blows the whistle, he loses his job. Enlisting the help of his buddy Dink the Thinker, and Connie Pan — whom he calls his girlfriend though she isn’t exactly that — Spud thinks he has a chance of regaining his job and stopping the Dumper’s harmful activities. In the background of this offbeat farce are serious issues that Spud must also deal with, including his father’s death, his mother’s withdrawal into grief, and his own awkward transition through adolescence. Brian Doyle expertly interweaves comedy and important contemporary concerns of young people in this vivid story with a message.
My Sister Sif
Fourteen-year-old Riko manages to get her delicate older sister Sif and herself to their remote Pacific island home, where an American scientist who falls in love with Sif and discovers her connection with an underwater race creates complications in Riko’s life.
The Iron Woman
Out of the sludge of a polluted swamp rises a huge, terrifying figure–the Iron Woman, about to vent her wrath on those who are destroying the land and sea and all wild creatures. Young Lucy, the first to see the giant, remembers that an Iron Man had appeared once before. Now she and the Iron Man must save the people from the Iron Woman’s wrath.