Today’s poetry picture book is one of my favorite discoveries to include this month.

THE LAST STRAW: KIDS VS. PLASTICS is an amazing book all about kids who have started changing the world and the damage plastic can cause in our world.  It’s non-fiction, science, biography, and poetry all in one package!  That’s a very tall order!  I have to admit that this is one idea I wish I’d thought of myself.  It’s brilliant.

I was surprised repeatedly while reading this book.  There were facts I didn’t know, science and inventions I’d never heard of, and kids who were already changing their world at such young ages.  Kids!  That’s the focus of the book, after all.  I wasn’t expecting to be so enthralled (the topic seems a bit worn out these days).  Yet I was repeatedly agog and I found myself reading bits of it to my hubby.  This is one I would like to get for my personal bookshelf, as well as my classroom bookshelf.

The poem I picked to share is the poem that starts off the book in the introduction section.  The poem isn’t there, but a letter from Milo Cress, the poem’s subject, greets the reader at the front of the book.  There are many things about plastic that feel impossible to change (big companies that make all their products in plastic, garbage patches in the sea, etc.).  But straws feel like something I can tackle myself.  I became aware of it a few years ago and started looking into metal straws (which I now carry in my purse and car).  But I admit I had NO idea that the movement was started by a kiddo.  Mind. BLOWN.

And if you’re looking for more poetry fun this month, be sure to check out the Kidlitosphere Event Roundup!