The Big Beach Cleanup

February 15, 2021
Disappointed when the end-of-summer sand-castle competition is postponed due to beach conditions, Cora starts campaigns to clean the beach and to avoid creating more plastic trash. The storyline of this thinly disguised lesson is straightforward. The aspiring castle-contest-contestant tries to clean up the beach, finds the task overwhelming, discovers that people are often too busy to pick up the accumulated trash but can help in other ways, learns about animals thinking trash is food, enlists some friends, and, with other contestants on the trash-free beach, gets to build her castle after all. What distinguishes the presentation are Rewse's colorful illustrations. They suggest a seaside community with a diverse population, palm trees, plenty of sun and sand, and, unfortunately (and all too realistically), a beach strewn with familiar plastic trash. Cora and her mother have brown skin and long textured hair, and there's a pleasing variety of skin tones, hair colors and styles, and generations among the simply depicted characters. The beach-cleaners all wear gloves or use trash-picking poles. The final spread shows the sand-castle competition, and though Cora's construction looks like a grand place to live, readers can see that others are even more complex or imaginative. But that's not the end. Cora's new project is a trash-reducing campaign. An author's note provides more information about plastic trash and ways to avoid creating it. Simple enough for preschool and kindergarten listeners but an effective introduction to a worldwide problem. (Picture book. 4-8)

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March 1, 2021
Preschool-Grade 1 "How many hands does it take to make a difference?" is the question posed in this action-oriented story about cleaning up a trash-covered beach. The local community features a racially diverse group of children and adults, with Cora, a brown-skinned girl, leading the way. She's excited by the prospect of building an elaborate sandcastle for the end-of-summer contest on her beach--until the ocean deposits some man-made trash, including plastic six-pack rings, water bottles, coffee cups, and straws. The shimmering, bubbly pastels of the landscapes contrast with the starkly white junk, offering an effective "clean this up" message in itself. Cora starts recruiting helpers, adding more hands to the cause, and then creates "Beach Cleanup" flyers and posts them all over town. The result of her efforts, a sandcastle competition that includes a mermaid, a VW bus, and the Empire State Building, is spectacular. And the big sign Cora posts at the beach regarding steps to take to help stop ocean pollution is a great goad to action.

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