SOS Water

by Yayo

Overview

With humour and a touch of poetry, this picture book features a sailor named Lalo, and Rosa, a goldfish, dealing with the pollution caused by plastic water bottles. Lalo wants to find a safe and clean place for his fish friend, but everywhere they go has been invaded by plastic water bottles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781990598234
Publisher:	Tradewind Books
Publication date:	06/15/2024
Pages:	56
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	6 - 8 Years

About the Author

Recognized as one of Canada’s outstanding illustrators, Yayo has won the Charles Biddle Award, the Concours Lux and the the Golden Smile from the First International Biennial of Caricature. Originally from Bogatá, Colombia, Yayo lives in Montréal, Quebec.

Editorial Reviews

With a light touch in both text and illustrations, Yayo, deals with a most serious subject – the water pollution being caused by discarded single-use plastic water bottles . . . Its environmental message (will) resonate with youngsters. Highly Recommended.”

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

★ “Pairing understated text with satiric line drawings, (SOS Water) highlights the serious ecological and societal harm caused by single-use containers . . . (and) is a crystal-clear clarion call to action.”

Quill & Quire

2024-08-30
A picture-book parable on environmental stewardship.

“Usually I don’t talk to strangers on the street,” says Lalo, a sailor. But our hero makes an exception upon encountering a talking goldfish in a fishbowl atop a pile of trash. Befitting her bright red color, her name is Rosa, and she longs for “a better life.” To fulfill this wish, Lalo takes Rosa on a global journey, but everywhere they go—a pond, a mountaintop, the Arctic, the jungle, the desert, the River Seine, the beach—they find empty, plastic water bottles, symbolic of broader environmental degradation. “We wondered where all of them came from,” says Lalo on a climactic spread showing the pair in a rowboat on a body of water choked by bottles. The following wordless spread depicts them watching aghast as people lug water bottles from a store; then they join not people but several anthropomorphic animals in cleaning up the ubiquitous litter. In their efforts, they encounter a garden gnome who finally gives Rosa a new home on his fantastically pristine property, and Lalo closes the story with a refreshing glass of tap water. (Fine-print warnings tell readers not to free goldfish in waterways and to ensure tap water’s potability.) Yayo blends attractive visuals, a sense of whimsy, and sound lessons on environmentalism. Human characters have skin the white of the page.

A fanciful tale with practical guidance for protecting our planet.(Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews