A Recipe for Ocean Soup

 Ocean Soup: A Recipe for You, Me, and a Cleaner Sea 

by Meeg Pincus; illus. by Lucy Semple 

32 pages; ages 6-9

Sleeping Bear Press. 2021

theme: ocean, environment, STEM

 From afar the vast ocean appears pure and clean.

But when you look closely you notice bits of plastic. The ocean, it turns out, is a soup of big bits and some so tiny they’re like pieces of confetti or glitter. Meeg Pincus shows how all that plastic got into the ocean, how it gets integrated into the aquatic food chain, and where it ultimately ends up: on our own plate!

What I like about this book: I like the metaphor of a recipe. I love the language of soup: stewing, simmered by sun, congealed. And I like how Meeg shows that many chefs contributed to the current Ocean Soup. What I like best of all is that instead of a recipe for disaster, Meeg shows what kids (and hopefully the adults they live with) can do to help clean up the ocean. It starts with simple things anyone can do and ends with an invitation:

We will need many chefs top help clean up the sea – 

starting here in our kitchen with you, and with me.

Plus there is back matter! A description of the ingredients in Ocean Soup, from plastic bottles to fishing gear. There’s also a recipe for cleaner oceans. And there’s an author’s note in which Meeg writes about growing up near the beaches, but now finds that much of her beach walking time is spent picking up trash. She realized that she needed to change how she used plastic in her own life. So I had to ask her One Question.

Me: Can you share how you settled on the idea to write this book it as a "recipe" and one of the challenges you faced doing that?

Meeg: I'd been working on my own plastic use for over a decade when I wrote Ocean Soup and was at the point where I was consistently carrying my cloth bags, metal water bottle, bamboo silverware and paper straws. But I found myself still bringing in too much plastic from other sources and wanted to push myself to do better. I would seek out bulleted lists of "how to go zero waste" and other how-to articles to try to keep improving, and it led me to think about the idea of a "recipe." At first, I wrote the story as a second-person recipe, basically "how to make Ocean Soup," showing how our habits (personal and collective) create microplastic pollution in the oceans… After many months of playing with the manuscript, and putting it aside, I finally came to the recipe being how the grownups (and industries) created "Ocean Soup" and how kids today can step in as "new chefs" with a "new recipe" to help fix it.

Beyond the Books:

How much plastic does your family throw away (or put in the recycling bin) each week? Keep a list of how many plastic bottles, yogurt containers, candy bags and other kinds of plastic you use. How much does it weigh? If this is your normal plastic use, what would it add up to in a month, a year, a lifetime (you might need a calculator for this)?

What specific things can you do to reduce the amount of plastic you bring into your home? Try to come up with one, two, or three good actions you can do. For example: stop using plastic straws.

People love using balloons for parties and celebrations. Come up with some things you can do instead of using balloons.

Meeg is a member of #STEAMTeam2021. You can find out more about her at her website, www.MeegPincus.com

Today we're joining Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Explore Outdoors ~ Signs of Spring

 

the music drops of sap make in a metal bucket

the burble of the creek, unfrozen

geese honking overhead

woodpeckers drumming on dead trees

we can see the grass

laundry hanging on clotheslines

 

What signs of Spring can you find?

 

We Live on a Water Planet...

The surface of our planet is 70% water and only 30% land. So why is it called "earth"?

Planet Ocean: Why We All Need a Healthy Ocean 
by Patricia Newman; photos by Annie Crawley
64 pages; ages 9-14
Millbrook Press, 2021

When we look at a globe or a world map, we see five oceans, right? There’s the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean… But, says Patricia Newman, those maps are wrong. The truth is that we have only one ocean, and it’s connected around the world. 

So ... a planet with one large, in places very deep Ocean that scientists are just beginning to explore. And diving into that ocean – at least for this book – is ocean explorer Annie Crawley. Thank goodness she takes us with her on her explorations!

We get to explore the “Coral Triangle” area between Malaysia, the Solomon Islands, and the Philippines. It’s an important habitat, but humans have put these coral reefs (and others) in danger as a result of mining, pollution, unsustainable fishing, and too much carbon dissolving into the water. Patricia dives right into the problems and shows how people are restoring the health of the coastlines in the coral triangle.

We also explore the Salish Sea, off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, and examine the impacts of pollution and ocean acidification. There’s even a trip to the Arctic. The last chapter argues that the ocean’s story is our story. From earliest times, Patricia writes, live began in the oceans. And the ”ocean’s richness continues to make our world possible.” She shows how young people can use their voices and art to speak out and change things for the better.

Yes, there IS back matter (you knew there would be). There are tips for visual storytelling, ways to help the ocean, and notes from the author and photographer. My recommendation: definitely “beach reading” for this summer.

Patricia is one of the authors who contributed to the book, Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep. In it, she says that her themes have to light her fire with a personal connection, a narrative, and a WOW! factor. They need to resonate with her connection to the outdoors, and often they touch on injustice of some kind. So I had to ask her One Question:

Me:  Can you share how your personal connection to the ocean inspired this book? How (and where) it led you?

Patricia: I grew up near water. My hometown in Vermont was on Lake Champlain. We sailed in Mallett's Bay. We swam and fished in lakes and rivers. When we visited my relatives in Rhode Island, we body surfed in the Atlantic Ocean, built sandcastles on the beach, and dug for quahogs with my aunt. My friend's family took me crabbing off the Jersey shore. When I moved to California, I windsurfed, snorkeled, and dove. The ocean is part of my childhood and adult memories, and I associate it with many feel-good moments in my life.

The more I learn about the ocean, the more I want to write about it. I focused on marine debris in Plastic, Ahoy!, and trophic cascades in Sea Otter Heroes. In Planet Ocean, I highlight our connection to the sea. Whether we live near the water or not, we breathe ocean with every breath because phytoplankton in the sea makes much of our oxygen. The ocean provides food, recreation, medicine, and even ensures a healthy global economy through trade. I think back to all my memories and I can't help but feel grateful for our ocean and all it provides. The ocean will live on without us, but we can't live without the ocean. I wrote Planet Ocean to make readers more aware of the ocean as a gift.

Patricia is a member of #STEAMTeam2021. You can find out more about her at her website. 

Want to dive even deeper? National Geographic Children’s Books is releasing this book in a few days. It celebrates the ocean through pictures, poems, and stories highlighting life on the beach, in the reef, underwater forests of kelp and the deep, and even on the icy edge. One of my favorite spreads: Creatures of the Kelp, featuring bat rays and kelp crabs (and more)

Beneath the Waves
by Stephanie Warren Drimmer 
192 pages; ages -up

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we’ll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It’s over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copies provided by the publishers.