Richie's Picks: NOBODY PARTICULAR

books:

	• Nobody Particular: One Woman's Fight to Save the Bays Molly Bang Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2001 - 48 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Richie's Picks: NOBODY PARTICULAR

Diane Wilson:
"This much I know: Within 25 miles of my house are five giant chemical plants--one each for Alcoa, British Petroleum, DuPont, Formosa Plastics, and Union Carbide. By night they look like magic lit-up fairy castles. In daylight they turn into gray and twisted surrealistic pipe dreams. We grew up high on their strange perfumes, knowing workers whose bathwater turned yellow every night until they died early, knowing we weren't supposed to fish the waters where Alcoa dumped tons of mercury...
"Now, I'm nobody particular--just a shrimper and momma--no education, no money, no clout. How can a nobody make these corporations quit dumping their poisons on us. If I stop to think on it, I'll know I'm a fool and go patch a shrimp net, quiet my mind in moving twine and fingers."

Molly Bang's picture book, NOBODY PARTICULAR: ONE WOMAN'S FIGHT TO SAVE THE BAYS is an astounding dual story--a powerful introduction to the complex competing demands upon the world's scarce fresh water supplies coupled with the jaw-dropping true story of Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation Texas shrimper who successfully took on multinational corporations and the EPA in order to protect the Texas bays from significantly increased toxic industrial discharges.

In the background of each two page spread, Molly Bang illustrates and discusses the prehistoric and historical development of, importance of, and mounting pressure upon the world's estuaries and fresh water supplies. As with her other environmentally related picture books, Molly Bang has a knack for portraying the interconnectedness of ecosystems and how they drastically affect and are affected by human beings. In the midst of each spread, in an overlying black and white graphic novel format, Bang simultaneously recounts how Diane Wilson discovered the bay pollution affecting her livelihood, learned of the plans by corporate polluters to expand their operations, and educated herself in order to fight the corporations and governmental bureaucrats.

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Inspiring but fact-dense story

Teenagers looking for nonviolent heroes like Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, need only read this book to find one. Diane Wilson, a shrimp fisher in Texas, learns that chemical factories which provide many jobs are also poisoning the water, reducing her livelihood and affecting the community's health. She rapidly becomes a hero to environmentalists and an enemy to the companies and local government, and has to undertake a hunger strike to get the federal government to enforce its own laws. Black and white comic-style illustrations flesh out the story, with a background of full color paintings depicting the natural systems affected. Like a graphic novel or Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the World, the illustrations brim over with facts, which may overwhelm many readers. But those who persist will understand just how much willpower it takes to overcome environmental injustice.

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From a renowned author/illustrator; a bold, daring, non-fiction picture book that tells the true story of one woman's fight to protect her environment.

Sometimes we have to take a stand and do what's right. That's what Diane Wilson thinks. An independent shrimper in Texas, she ekes out a living in the same waters that her family has worked hard in for generations. When Diane learns that the chemical plants in Texas give out more pollution than in any other state, she decides to stop them.

One woman against a powerful industry is not much of a fair fight, but Diane educates herself, lobbies, protests, writes letters, and never gives up. Based on real events, this is an inspiring, heartfelt story of one woman's struggle to take a stand against injustice and indifference.

Award-winning author/illustrator Molly Bang has created a compelling narrative, told inventively through a series of black and white graphic panels set against a richly colored gouache background.

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