Every Last Drop

February 3, 2014
Writing with candor as well as some humor, Mulder gently urges readers who live in the developed world to never take fresh water for granted in this addition to the Orca Footprint ecology series. Chapters focus on the history of human efforts to harness and clean water, the water cycle, and how world nations have found innovative methods to access water (for example, in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, families remove the salt from their water using desalinating devices run on sunlight). Photographs of individuals from around the world collecting and using water put the topic in vivid focus, as do statistics that note that one in six people “don’t have access to clean water. Almost half of those people live in Africa.” Ages 8–12.

February 15, 2015
To dumpster dive, to glean, perchance to dream of a zero-waste world.Mulder tells the garbage story in clean and engrossing prose, complemented by stock artwork and photographs. Humans have always made trash-eat that wooly mammoth leg, and you are left with a wooly mammoth bone-though trash production took off exponentially with the establishment of settled communities. What is trash, asks Mulder? Trash is something that no longer is useful. But use is in the eye of the beholder. An empty yogurt container could be chucked out the car window, or it could serve as a pencil holder. Old jeans can be used for housing insulation, as can tires or books or, weirdly, toothbrushes. Mulder provides all sorts of alternatives to incineration, landfills and ocean dumping. She explorers the cons of recycling-it can produce as much methane as cows; it consumes a lot of energy; it results in an often weakened product-as well as many pros, and she throws in plenty of mind-twisting sidebars: Yes, those styrene containers keeping your fast-food burger warm may well be serving you a dose of brain damage. Ultimately Mulder suggests we not make it in the first place. Enclosed in these pages is plenty of food for thought and examples for direct action. (Nonfiction. 8-12)

April 1, 2015

Gr 5-7-Both a history of trash and a manual of its elimination (or diminution, at least), this nifty book covers a variety of topics, from the trash pits (think archaic sanitary landfills) of the ancient Minoans to the gross filth of New York City in 1850. Employing readable language, Mulder chronicles the development of garbage disposal and goes on to castigate our throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one way of thinking. She discusses reformatting, reusing, and repairing to lessen the landfill burdens and presents ways to cut down the enormous amounts of rubbish humans produce on a global daily basis. "Trash Facts" pop up, as do "Take in the Trash" notes. Colorful photos record garbage issues around the world and innovative solutions to cope with this mountainous problem. Pair this with such green titles as Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin's challenging True Green Kids: 100 Things You Can Do to Save the Planet (National Geographic, 2008) and Brad Herzog's simpler but eye-catching S Is for Save the Planet: A How-to-Be-Green Alphabet (Sleeping Bear, 2009) for a further look at our smelly, bulky accumulations and inventive ways to change our wasteful ways. VERDICT An informative call to action for young greenies.-Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2014
Grades 4-7 As with her previous titles about sustainable transportation and energy, Mulder begins this book by relating her personal experience with the topic, including a severe illness after drinking contaminated water in Peru. She then looks at the management of clean water and sewage throughout history, from the earliest wells in Cyprus to the Minoans' first flush toilets (unfortunately forgotten when they were conquered by the Mycenaeans). Other loosely related chapters examine how clean water is delivered to North American homes; natural ways, such as wetlands, that the environment cleans water; and global innovations to collect fresh water and remove microbes, poisons, and salt. Young people will be amazed by the global initiatives: filtering arsenic-contaminated water in Bangladesh with iron nails, harvesting fog to gather fresh water in Chile, and more. Catchy Go with the Flow headings, startling water facts, and color photos of children collecting and conserving water around the world make this high-interest reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)