Title: No Time To Waste
Author: Carolyn Armstrong https://wiwrite.org/Sys/PublicProfile/76610306/4946371
Publisher: Carolyn Armstrong Books/June 2024
Language: English
Format: paperback and ebook, 216 pages
Genre: Middle Grade Fiction and Nature Environment
ISBN-13: 979-8218392376
Reviewed by: Bibi Belford https://wiwrite.org/Sys/PublicProfile/59192009
An Eco-Educational Adventure
No Time to Waste by Carolyn Armstrong is the second book in the Eco Warrior Series, starring eleven-year-old twins—Sydney and Sierra. At the end of their first adventure, an Arctic bird told Sydney, “Need help with the sea kelp.” That advice lands them in Monterey, CA. It’s obvious to the twins that there’s a lot of plastic trash on the beach, and cleaning it up is important, but what does that have to do with sea kelp? Sydney believes their purpose is something bigger. She soon finds out what it is when Sunny the otter, one of the keystone species in how the ocean ecosystem functions, asks for help.
At first, Sydney doesn’t understand that the odd sounds Sunny and his friends are making—jee-pee jee-pee—relate to the imbalance in the ocean ecosystem, evidenced by the overabundance of sea urchins and the lack of sea kelp. Sierra's research and a visit to Dr. Ally at the Marine Pollution Lab are needed to figure it out. Slowly, the puzzle pieces of their mission become clear, something needs to be done about the GPGP—The Great Pacific Garbage Patch—twice the size of Texas and floating in the ocean.
With Sydney’s special gift of speaking to animals and Sierra’s mastermind, the twins save two ocean animals from their immediate plastic problem. They work to remove a plastic six-pack ring off Cutie Pie, Sunny’s otter friend, and detangle Tiny the whale from the garbage entangling his fins. When Tiny sprays, Sydney realizes that it’s not only garbage, such as plastic rings, nets, and soda bottles, that are endangering the sea animals, but small pieces of plastic the size of fish eggs, called nurdles, that sea animals are ingesting.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and others like it are vortexes where non-biodegradable plastics, broken down into microplastics, swirl in a cloudy soup surrounded by other larger items. Solving the GPGP problem is the key to saving animals from the nurdles, but how to do that has the girls stumped. For inspiration they attend an Eco Challenge Exhibition where kids have created inventions to Save Our Oceans. Sydney and Sierra are interested in a presentation about nets placed at the mouth of rivers to prevent garbage from reaching the ocean in the first place, and then inspired by a filter invention designed by a boy named Max. But it will never work to clean up the GPGP—for that, they’ll need to make a giant vacuum pollution sucker. After brainstorming and some FAILs—first attempts at learning—according to Dr. Ally, they come up with a prototype they call Tiny 2, which impresses the scientists at the Marine Pollution Lab. Although their mission in Monterey, CA might be over, the twins know cleaning up the ocean will take a long time and require people to stop polluting and produce less plastic. As they say goodbye to the Pacific Coast, Sydney searches for a clue that will suggest their next adventure. Are the monarchs that begin landing on her a sign?
Armstrong has written an informative book about ocean pollution disguised as an exciting adventure without being preachy or boring. The dynamics of twin sisters with contrasting personalities, nosy parents, new content-specific vocabulary, and imminent danger will keep readers on the edge of their seats and, by the end, convert them into allies of ocean conservation. An extensive glossary is included at the back of the book, as well as a list of eco-friendly suggestions so readers can join the Eco Warriors in saving our oceans. Teachers will find this book a valuable resource to read aloud and include in their classroom library to bridge literature and science. Readers won’t realize how much they’re learning as they follow the sisters in and out of the water, super-sleuthing the ocean’s plastic problem.
