PETE PUFFIN’S WILD RIDE
By Libby Hatton
Alaska Geographic, 2008
Category: Picture book, fiction
Author/Illustrator Libby Hatton recently sent me “a note of appreciation” … and I am sending her one right back with this blog post.
Libby’s latest picture book, like TRACKING TRASH, was inspired by the 1992 spill of 28,800 plastic bathtub toys into the Pacific Ocean. After an unfortunate fall from an Alaskan cruise ship, the titular Pete Puffin—a wooden toy—narrates the story of his epic adventures afloat on Alaskan currents. Lift-and-read postcards from Pete’s owner, a boy named Eddy, complete the tale while adding an interactive element that younger readers will surely appreciate.
Libby’s book joins a rather long list of children’s books inspired by the 1992 cargo spill that released 28,800 plastic ducks, beavers, frogs, and turtles into the Pacific Ocean:
DUCKY, by Eve Bunting
10 LITTLE RUBBER DUCKS, by Eric Carle
DEXTER’S JOURNEY, by Chris d’Lacey
TRACKING TRASH, by me
This ever-growing list excites me to no end, and not just because I am on it. No, the list excites me because I talk with students in schools all the time about telling stories, and one of the messages I try to impart is this one:
WRITE THE STORY THAT EXCITES YOU, EVEN IF IT HAS BEEN TOLD BEFORE. JUST TELL IT YOUR WAY!
Each of the writers in the list above has taken the story of an amazing accident and turned it into a way of sharing their passions. Eve Bunting explores emotion (she tells the spill story through the eyes of a single lost duck), Eric Carle used the story to explore a concept through art (the concept: ordinal numbers), Chris d’Lacey created a story to entice beginning readers, I delved into the science, and Libby Hatton uses the story to share her passion for Alaska and its environs. Each of us told the same story, but by drawing on our unique passions and interests.
Thank you for your book, Libby. And welcome to the ducky-spill book club!