Book Review: Our Plastic Problem

Plastic is great for a lot of things, from medical equipment to food storage and clothing, but the world has so much plastic (and all the plastic that has ever been made still exists on the planet) that our reliance on it has become a big problem.

Megan Durnford’s Our Plastic Problem: A Call for Global Solutions looks at the good, the bad and the ugly of plastic production geared toward kids ages 9 to 12. It covers the history of plastic production, starting with the development of celluloid by John Wesley Hyatt in the 19th century. Celluloid was used to make things like combs, toothbrush handles and shirt collars (as well as film for cameras that led to movie production).

World War II really began the huge production of plastic products, including nylon parachutes and acrylic airplane windows. After the war, plastics became widely available for household use.

So what’s the problem? Plastics are made from fossil fuels, and require lots of energy to make. Plastic doesn’t biodegrade, but it does break down into smaller pieces, which pose hazards for wildlife and humans alike. It collects in large garbage patches in the ocean, most of which gets there from rivers. And so much plastic is single use, made to be trashed right away, and a lot of it can’t be recycled.

After covering all the problems with plastic, the book talks about alternatives to plastic, bioplastics, recycling and reducing reliance on plastics. There’s a list of things kids and families can do to reduce their plastic waste, resources for learning more about these issues and a glossary of potentially unfamiliar words used in the book.

Our Plastic Problem provides a good overview for middle grade kids on what plastic is, what we use it for, the problems with so much reliance on plastic products and some things we can do to reduce our personal use of plastics.

About the book: 48 pages, hardcover. Published 2025 by Orca Book Publishers. Suggested retail price $21.95.

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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