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When the author heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. His accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories. This work is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable. With each new discovery, he learns of another loose thread, and with each successive chase, he comes closer to understanding where his castaway quarry comes from and where it goes.… (more)
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…or will it?
And who will be the salvage experts in
Nope. Not even close…
A container ship did in fact take on the full fury of such a storm, in the place mentioned, and containers did spill forth into the ocean, and they did in fact open up and released their precious cargo; not anything your imagination allowed you to think though.
Rubber ducks.
Yellow rubber ducks, ala Ernie from Sesame St fame…in excess of 28,000 of them.
And if we pull back a little, Mr Hohn is no pirate or gold-digging explorer, but a teacher who caught wind of the story some years later and decided to pack in his job, have a baby and search for the real story about the little lumps of plastic which had been washing up on distant shores, even 10 years later.
And it’s all true.
This is a great sea ditty (albeit not in the traditional sense) as Hohn doesn’t leave any stone unturned as he hunts his own Moby Dick, a book paid reference to many a time throughout. Cleaning beaches in Alaska, riding a container ship from Asia, even taking part of a scientific research expedition in the Arctic…Hohn is obsessed with an iconic symbol of our childhood, and while he could go buy one for a couple of bucks instore, he is hellbent on finding one amongst the jetsam and flotsam of beaches barely seen by human eyes.
Now I can’t tell you the outcome, that would ruin it, but enjoy the man’s travels, through hardship and otherwise as he explains the Great Garbage Patch of the Pacific, a natural phenomenon of ocean currents that accumulates all of our junk in a floating cesspit (shame on you all!), to the vaguries of our incessant desire to consume shit that is quite frankly, bloody bad for us.
And while the book has some classic passages of light relief and is up tempo, there is a dark, underlying theme that we only get one shot at this place, and we’re screwing it up royally…
Top read, a must for tree-huggers and heathens alike.
The book is full of interesting information about our oceans and the stories of those ducks. By the way, it was not just ducks. The overboard packages also had a red beaver, a blue turtle, and a green frog. It's the yellow duck that captured people's imagination. That is one topic explored in the book.
This book has been on my "to read" list for a long time, in part because of my enjoyment of the Carle book. However, I think I set my expectations too high. The narrative wanders a bit as Mr. Hohn travels the world exploring the back story of the ducks. At times, it seems he tries to be too clever in constructing complex sentences and flashbacks. It becomes distracting from an otherwise interesting story. It also ends flat, without a satisfying resolution to his studies.
There is so much I liked about this book, I was quite sad to get to the end, although sometimes the science content was a bit tough going. What a fascinating journey the author has taken to uncover more of the story of the rubber ducks! I was horrified by the sheer scale of rubbish collected on the very rural beaches of Alaska and the descriptions of the garbage patch at sea are frankly shocking, as is the thought of degraded plastic particles potentially becoming part of our food chain. It is a book that will stay with me for a long time I think. My only regret is buying the kindle version rather than the physical book. I haven't seen the book, but I imagine the reading would be enriched with photographs - there are some on the writers website.
In the 1990s, a container ship was hit by a wave and dropped some of its cargo, namely 28,000
Their path took the toys into the Arctic Circle where they got trapped in the ice later began washing up on Alaskan shores. Many years later reports surfaced of sun bleached bath toys showing up on Eastern Seaboard beaches.
Hohn's book started as an exploration of the currents, the trash eddies, and climatology. It morphed into a study of container shipping (and just how much stuff is probably lost overboard but left unreported). The book includes interviews of people who found the toys as well as thoughts on how the hunt for them brought people together.
While interesting, I wanted more from the book. The book would have been stronger with photographs: the actual toys, the people interviewed, etc. It also needed more maps and infographics. The book is basically crying for illustrations.
There were so many interesting stories this book could have told about ocean conservation and water pollution. It could also have been a humorous hunt for the lost rubber ducks. But it didn't tell those stories. The end result was a rambling and verbose monologue with no apparent point at all.
This is really a story about plastic in the ocean and the currents, surface and deep, that move things in the ocean. Why that was so interesting that the author decided to take off to Alaska in the last month of his wife's pregnancy where he remained out of cell phone range is something I can't explain. I was very disappointed and can't think of a single person I would recommend it to.
This book gives a clear set of data about what has been turned into an urban legend in the retelling.
I really wish that someone with this sort of passion and commitment could win a MacArthur Grant; I can hope, fervently, that the cute title might prompt the young people who will inherit the problem as the years go on to read this book even though it is non-fiction and does not have ANY Sparkly!Vampires in it.
It's a bit too long and wordy (75 pages less would be about right). But meandering as it does through culture, toymaking, weather-vs-climate, polar ice, environmentalism, ocean currents, transoceanic shipping and childrens toys, this is a fascinating look at one of those
It's a nicely explored book, well researched and well told. I learned a lot more than I thought I would, though there were also sections when I could loosely skim 15 or 20 pages and not care about what I missed.
Hohn is at his best when describing people and objects; he's really witty and fun. This makes the meandering worthwhile.
This book documents his trail of the bath toys, and takes him to the factory that made them, a trip across the Pacific on a container ship and across the northwest
There are also some interesting comments regarding Moby Dick, the role of toys in
To me, at least, the whole book was a bit overwhelming and, toward the end, a real struggle to finish!