A great environmental lesson in this new kids’ coloring storybook

Gramma Golden’s very entertaining books were created to educate children and adults about things we can do to improve and protect our environment.

In addition to the Bird Lady, the other main characters, Mort and Ort, are two colorful and talkative birds. In Gramma’s first book, It’s a Great Day for Pulling Weeds, which I reviewed earlier, Mort and Ort teach the Bird Lady about how some gardening practices are harming birds, butterflies, and bees. I had a wonderful time last year reading that book to my 3 year-old granddaughter Ada.

And I’ll be reading Gramma’s new book, It’s A Great Day for Walking the Beach, to Ada soon. In this book, Mort and Ort meet the Bird Lady on an oceanside beach, and show her all the trash in the water and on the beach that is harming and killing everything from birds to clams.

This message is very timely, given recent evidence. A January 28 story in the Kennebec Journal reported that friends of Casco Bay found plastic waste in all four regions they checked out along the Maine coast. That didn’t really surprise me, but I did not realize that much of our marine life eats that plastic which could be very harmful to them.

Do you enjoy eating mussels as I do? Well, almost 2000 pieces of micro-plastics can go through their systems in a day. And after 72 hours of filtering water, dissected mussels still had traces of micro-plastics in their systems. I doubt you enjoy eating micro-plastics.

Bird Lady goes to work educating beach goers about the need to properly dispose of their stuff, including having a plane fly along the beach trailing a sign with that important message.
I especially enjoyed Stephen Adams illustrations, which kids can color. I’m sure my granddaughter is going to love that.

Gramma (Jan) Golden was a nurse and health care educator who, in retirement, is focused on teaching young people to be good environmental stewards. She also writes a monthly newspaper column and, with her husband, maintains gardens and property as both an Audubon Bird and Butterfly Sanctuary and National Wildlife Federation certified habitats.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.