Trash Vortex: How Plastic Pollution Is Choking the World's Oceans

by Danielle Smith-llera

Millions of tons of plastic slip into oceans every year. Some floats and travels slowly with the currents, endangering the health of marine animals. The rest is hardly visible but is far more dangerous. Tiny bits of plastic sprinkle the ocean's surface or mix into the sandy seafloor and beaches. It ends up inside birds, fish, and other animals, harming them-and ultimately humans. Experts struggle with fear and hope as they work to stop the flood of plastic threatening living organisms across the globe.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science

64 pages, Paperback

Published December 30, 2019

Reviews

[Ca1t!Y#]

This book was fine. I had to read it for school, but it did have some interesting facts in it.

[Kyrstin]

It's fine. It doesn't necessarily go far enough into solution the way my students and I want it to. They wanted more direct actions they could contribute to.

[Caroline]

yes

[Stefan Ross]

It was good, showed me how plastic can be dangerous

[sara kate :)]

idk it was just iffy but it’s a 2.5 (i had to read this for school)

[Brenin 117]

tells good information and reasoning how plastic pollution is affecting our oceans

[Caitlyn]

This book was fine. I had to read it for school, but it did have some interesting facts in it.

[Amy Smith]

Good information but a challenging read and boring for my 5th grade students.

[Millie Bryson]

Allegedly on a 7th grade reading level. Not very engaging, but very informative. Might make you feel like society is doomed at our current societal level of over-consumption!

[elle banas]

shoutout my political ecology final project.

[♱ Mami Churro Chula Sasuke Gomez ♱]

Waste of paper. This won't stop plastic. I hope you go swimming and get plastic up ur vajayjay.

[Erin]

Part of our curriculum. It's fine for its purpose as an anchor text, but that's as far as I would go.

[Kathleen]

This is one in a children's series called Captured Science History, covering recent and not-so-recent scientific topics ranging from the Titanic to the Hubble Space Telescope. Trash Vortex covers the floating island of garbage (mainly plastic) in the Pacific Ocean, and the breakdown of those plastics into even smaller plastics, and how that is affecting (mostly killing) marine life. It focuses heavily on Captain Charles Moore and his efforts to get people to believe in the garbage island, so don't expect a lot of other coverage. It has fewer pictures and more complicated text than I would have expected, but it's a reasonably good nonfiction book for fourth gradeish and up.

[Heather Kliever]

I am using this text for my middle school language arts classroom. It is a great anchor text for reading infographics, studying science history, and learning about the marine environment. The book allows for cross-subject work in math and science classes, too!

[Andi]

Great for home schooling research paper

[Ren Strange]

2.5

this really dragged on. it could’ve just been an article.