My picture book Lobstah Gahden released two weeks ago! And, today being Earth Day, I am celebrating this delightfully punny story about ocean life, conservation, and cooperation. The book is set in Bawstin Hahbah, off the shores of Massachusetts, and the characters have that distinctly charming New England accent. Readers are encouraged to put on their own versions of the accent while reading about Walter and Milton, the gahdening lobstahs in the story.
Walter is a proud lobstah whose greatest dream is winning the annual Swell Gahdens contest. But year after year that honor always goes to his chowdah-head neighbah Milton. One day, when heaps of gahbage start showing up in their yahds, the rival lobstahs must join forces to save their beloved gahdens from the trash floating down from above.
My hope is that Lobstah Gahden will help kids understand the importance of conservation, especially through the story's humor and the bonus backmatter pages about sea life and pollution. The book is great for sparking conversations with young readers and gives them practical ways they can help preserve our oceans.
The ocean has always been important to me. I’m a beach baby, having grown up on the shores of Long Island, NY—and now my kids are beach babies, too. We all care about ocean pollution, and are trying our best to stop contributing to the problem.
Here are some organizations that are doing some great work for Earth's oceans:
Ocean Conservancy, oceanconservancy.org Plastic Pollution Coalition, plasticpollutioncoalition.org Oceanic Presevation Society, opsociety.org Oceana, oceana.org Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, seafoodwatch.org
Terracycle, terracycle.com is taking recycling to a whole new level
If you head over to my Instagram and Twitter today, Walter and Milton will be guest posting some more tips about how to reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Some other cool book-related news:
Illustrator EG Keller, editor Kelly Barrales-Saylor, and I talked with the Picture Book Look Podcast about all things lobstah
Kaitlyn Sanchez featured me for a book birthday Q&A about Lobstah Gahden
I did another Q&A over at Picture Book Builders back in February, where I talked about my multivarious children’s book career
Lobstah Gahden has received some wonderful bookstagrammer love so far
You can buy Lobstah Gahden at your local indie bookstore, through bookshop.org, and from any brick-and-mortar bookstore or internet retailer.
So, for Earth Day and every day:
pick up tha plastic,
keep recycling,
and clean it up, ya chowdah heads!
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