Come Back, Salmon: How a Group of Dedicated Kids Adopted Pigeon Creek and Brought It Back to Life

by Molly Cone

Describes efforts to clean up a stream, stock it with salmon, and keep it unpolluted so salmon could spawn

Genres: Nonfiction

48 pages, Library Binding

First published April 1, 1994

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

About a primary school that adopted a creek, cleaned it up, added salmon fry that it hatched, and re-established salmon. Every kid helped clean up the creek and educate the neighbors on why not to dump stuff in it. They watched the eggs hatch and develop into fry. They learned to test the water quality. They each released at least one young fish. They checked the creek for weeks when the salmon might return. It's a very inspirational story. Makes me want to start such a project here.

[Sunday · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was published in 1992 and is still SO RELEVANT TODAY. If you and your students are studying water, the environment, animals, whatever, this is worthy of your time. Cone's telling of this story made me want to weep. The photographs, illustrations and informative sidebars give lots of information about the five types of Pacific salmon and their value in our world. There's a clear theme of how EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED!! Recommend reading aloud or at least book talking and watching as it's snatched up from your library.

PAIR THIS TEXT with Salmon Stream by Reed-Jones. (I'd read aloud Salmon Stream first.)

[Meghan]

This book is about how Jackson Elementary School in Everett, WA adopted a stream, Pigeon Creek, in the mid 1980’s and brought it from an uninhabitable dumping ground to a flourishing stream, once again alive with salmon. There was incredible effort made by students, who eventually got the attention and support of the nearby community.

[bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great source for a lesson about conservation. This also may spark an idea for the children to start their own conservation project.

[Darlene Andre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book showing how kids make a difference and we all need to do our part to help the environment.

[AS · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is neat! On the one hand, it shows how kids and adults can rally together to do a conservation project that will make a significant difference. On the other hand, the book also makes it pretty clear how much commitment, work, time, and community involvement is needed. It’s inspiring to read about how they identified a huge project like this and saw it the whole way through.

(It also shows how jerky adults can be, from the people dumping crap in the creek left and right, to the people in the community who told the kids, “Don’t bother. The creek will never get better.” I think that’s an interesting and true-to-life lesson for kids to learn, that adults will be jerks, but you can succeed at a project in spite of them!)

I especially liked the way the teachers wove a considerable amount of formal learning into the project. It carried over into many different subjects areas, from science to language arts, etc. Makes the lessons more powerful all the way around.

The book is kind of old at this point, and the former elementary school kids must now be in their forties or fifties. It makes me wonder how many of them ended up pursuing careers or other volunteer work in science and conservation. I bet they still remember it well!
Definitely recommend : )

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

best book ever