Marina: A Story about Plastic and the Planet - Jesse Byrd - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Jesse Byrd

ILLUSTRATOR: Andressa Meissner

GENRE: Children's Fiction, Environment

RATING: 3.75 Stars.

A story with a great heart and a great message, but it required a few tweaks to be even better.

Marina loves the sandwich that her mom makes for her school lunch. After she devours it during her break, she throws the plastic wrapper away in the trashcan, as a good child should. Unknown to her, the wrapper is carried away by a gust of wind, and it goes through a long underwater journey before washing up on the very beach where Marina is having fun with her family. She sure is surprised to discover her labelled wrapper again!

Through the wrapper’s underwater journey, children will get to see many marine animals and how the strange plastic sheet bothers them. At the end of the book, there are some shocking facts related to marine plastic pollution.

The message of the story is a much-needed one. There are so many instances of single-use plastic that are totally avoidable but many continue to use them. (The one that I hate the most is plastic wrap.) The book highlights how plastic doesn’t really ‘go away’. It reiterates one fact that I had read a few years ago – every piece of plastic ever invented still exists. [Take a moment to let that sink in your head! It’s a disconcerting thought.] Alternate packaging methods are needed wherever possible, and we need to switch over fast.

At the same time, the book falls a little short of achieving its potential. It highlights how plastic wrappers add to the pollution, but it just mentions that Marina’s mom now chooses more planet-friendly alternatives. It would have been better to mention the alternatives so that children are aware of the environmentally-safe packaging options available.

Similarly, the book ends by Marina wondering what else she could do, and stops at that. There are only two solutions provided at the end of the book, and both are ocean-related and quite minor. One of the ‘solutions’ was, “When you see a piece of trash on the beach, put it in the right place.” However, the fact is that Marina had disposed of her sandwich wrapper the right way – it still didn’t help. The focus should not be just on right disposal but also on minimising usage, especially of single-use plastics. The book really missed out on an opportunity to reiterate the message with more practical, realistically implementable solutions. Just one tip of using a reusable cup isn’t enough.

The font, written in a clear CAPS style, is easy on the eyes, though I don’t know how some adult readers might feel about the all-CAPS approach. The vocabulary is quite simple for early readers, so the book would work nicely for 5-8 year olds.

The illustrations are quite cute. Marina is adorable with her genuine expressions, but even more striking are the underwater illustrations. The marine world sparkles on the page. I loved how the ocean creatures are shown indulging in human activities such as bathing or composing music – it was quite funny! However, the proportion of the plastic wrapper against the real-life size of the animals goes wrong at times, especially on the page with the blue whale.

(One thing I didn’t get: when almost all the marine animals were referred to by their species names such as octopus or crab, why was the shark the only creature with a human name - ‘Phil’? Weird!)

To sum up, great intent, good content. But it misses the chance to create an even greater impact. Nevertheless, still recommended. A small start towards better living habits is better than no start at all.

My thanks to Baker & Taylor, Paw Prints Publishing, and NetGalley for the DRC of “Marina: A Story About Plastic and the Planet”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.