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SOCIAL SCIENCES
Motum, Markus

Ducks Overboard!: A True Story of Plastic in Our Oceans

32 pp. | Candlewick | September, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-1-5362-1772-8 $17.99
(2) K-3 As in his 2018 title Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover, Motum smartly employs a whimsical character introducing solid scientific concepts, a task this book's child-friendly star (Rubber Duckie, you're the one!) performs swimmingly. Our hero began life almost thirty years ago when it was produced in China, loaded onto a cargo ship, and shipped to the U.S. for distribution. While in transit in the North Pacific, its container was swept overboard and the contents--including twenty-eight thousand rubber ducks--dumped in the water. Rubber Duckie is left helplessly floating in the ocean, and readers receive a clear, understandable introduction to oceanography and the environmental threats of plastic in the world's seas. Bright digital illustrations depict the marine life below, including a whale swallowing a plastic bag and a sea turtle caught in an abandoned fishing net. Expository sentences, with their smaller typeface distinguishing them from the main narrative, add context to these sightings. Two uncluttered maps, enhanced with relevant notes (such as the effects of the flotsam on the Great Barrier Reef), show the global paths of many of the real-life twenty-eight thousand. Rubber Duckie, however, flounders in the Pacific Garbage Patch; is again tossed out of the gyre; and is finally discovered on a beach, picked up by one of the many volunteers who attempt to clean up our shores. Back matter provides a diagram, accompanying scientific discussion of ocean currents, information about the 1992 rubber duck toy spill, facts about plastics, and ways readers can help or become citizen scientists.
Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

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