The Chesapeake Bay has become polluted by a stinky plastic-eating bacteria, pee yew! But fifth-grade friends Izi, Gir, and others take action together by forming an activist group called the Antidotes, and join forces with public health activists to find clean water solutions. The friends use STEM strategies to help save the earth from a potential disaster— they also have secret meetings, do a little spy work, and make some useful discoveries.
Along the way, they learn to embrace their differences, and discover that they are stronger when they all work together. The Antidotes race against the clock to get out the word to kids around the world about how to stay safe. But— will the Antidotes be able to get enough kids to reduce their plastic use before it makes any more fish or kids sick? Join the Antidotes in their first science adventure, and stay tuned for more stories!
The Chesapeake Bay has become polluted by a stinky plastic-eating bacteria, pee yew! But fifth-grade friends Izi, Gir, and others take action together by forming an activist group called the Antidotes, and join forces with public health activists to find clean water solutions. The friends use STEM strategies to help save the earth from a potential disaster— they also have secret meetings, do a little spy work, and make some useful discoveries.
Along the way, they learn to embrace their differences, and discover that they are stronger when they all work together. The Antidotes race against the clock to get out the word to kids around the world about how to stay safe. But— will the Antidotes be able to get enough kids to reduce their plastic use before it makes any more fish or kids sick? Join the Antidotes in their first science adventure, and stay tuned for more stories!
CHAPTER 1
Field Trip
GIR
Dad’s apartment is a maze piled high with boxes of water samples, petri dishes, microscope slides, and stacks of notebooks. It
smells fishy. Not the kind of fish you eat. Nor the kind of fishy smell that’s been outside lately. It’s the way Dad’s home smells. Salty like the air way out in the ocean when a big wave crashes on deck during a big fish rescue.
After he moved out, Mom’s house lost the salty sea smell of Dad’s stuff.
Dad’s a marine biologist who studies how plastic is destroying sea creatures and their envi- ronment. A few times when I’ve gone to the lab with him, they opened the stomachs of dead fish. It was super gross. Blood and slimy guts mixed
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with plastic bottles and other garbage. Once there was a kid’s sock. Can you imagine eating a sock? I hope it was at least clean. Ew!
Today, the class trip is to his research vessel that is docked around the corner from his apart- ment. At least I don’t have to ride on the bus from school this morning with Suzie Sanders, class bully extraordinaire.
He gives a talk to my class every year. The last two years, he’s had to do it on the computer since we were all stuck at home. Dad usually gets excited the night before one of his presentations and used to practice in front of me and Mom a million times. He likes to ask me lots of questions, and it takes forever to finish. I don’t mind. I like talking to him. But not this time. Last night, he didn’t want to practice his presentation. He hovered quietly next to me for two hours after dinner while I did my homework at the long driftwood dining table. We’d built it together during the pandemic. His new apartment was completely empty without it.
This morning, he sits across from me. One hand is pulling through his long blond curls. The other pushes his fake eggs around his plate with a fork. I’ve always wondered if they are laid by fake chickens. Get it? Fake eggs? Fake chickens? They’re okay, but not as good as the real eggs at Mom’s house.
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He breaks the silence and says, “Today’s pre- sentation and lab exercise will be about water quality.” And then, nothing. Usually, I can’t get him to stop talking about his work.
“I hope it’s not as boring as it sounds,” I chirp, trying to get him to say more. He’d better make it interesting, the way he normally does, or else I’ll hear about it from Suzie for the rest of the year.
But nothing. Nada. Zip.
Over the fireplace, there’s a sign that says, “A plastic ocean. We need a wave of change.” My family has been plastic-free for my whole life—all ten years of it. But sometimes plastic sneaks into Mom’s place.
Never Dad’s, though.
And forget about Suzie. She’s always saying stuff like, “My dad says that without plastic the economy would collapse.”
I’m not sure what the economy collapsing even means. But it sounds serious.
Dad gets up and pushes his uneaten eggs onto my plate. He’s a big bear-like man who never says no to a second helping of food.
“Hey! I haven’t finished mine yet,” I protest.
He smiles a little and winks at me. “It’s good protein. You’re a growing boy. I’m not very hungry
this morning.”
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I finish all the eggs in silence and go to my room to get dressed for today’s class trip.
While I put on the same clothes I wore yester- day, I hear and feel the apartment shiver as Dad’s bear-like body thumps back and forth from his room to the living room to the kitchen back to the living room to the dining area back to his room. I peek outside my room and see him pulling at his reddish beard looking for something.
I ask, “You okay, Papa Bear?”
“Yeah, bud. Can you give me my notebook back,
please?” he sighs, giving me the gimme signal with his hand. “For once, I hope you are up to your old tricks, again.”
By “old tricks” he means taking his old books and notebooks to my room to read after he goes to sleep.
“Nope, sorry. I’ve been too busy playing one of Leo’s new games and trying to keep up with Olu on social.” I sort of wish I had taken it, so I could give it to him. “It’s important?” I ask.
“Very. It has my research from my last trip in it,” he answers and changes the subject. “Never mind my notebook. Did you finish your homework? Do you need help with anything before we walk over to the marina?”
“Dad, what do you mean? Are you feeling okay? You watched me finish my homework last night.” I
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stretch my arm up and press the back of my hand to his forehead the way Mom does to see if I have a fever.
Dad pauses and half smiles. “Naw, bud, I’m feeling fine. Let me just go check one more place.”
“Did you save it on your computer?” I ask. I know the answer. But I ask, anyway.
“No, I didn’t. You know how much I hate com- puters,” he says.
It’s one of the things he and Mom fought about while trying to take turns with remote learning. He says he’s “old school.” Pencil and paper. He really doesn’t like computers. He only uses them when he needs to work with me on my schoolwork. Mom’s the opposite. She loves technology.
I put my stuff for school in my backpack. “I’m ready when you are. Why do we have to go back to school after the field trip? Why can’t I just stay at work with you?” I ask.
“The field trip will only take a couple of hours. What happened to ‘I can’t wait to go back to school. I never want to miss another day!’?” he asks, pulling me in for a hug. He buries his face into my mop of curls and kisses me on the head. You would think that Dad would smell like fish because everything else around him smells like fish, but he doesn’t. He smells like a beachy
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campfire—saltwater mixed in with his sandal- wood cologne. At least, that’s how Mom used to describe it.
“I know, but lately Suzie’s been up to her old tricks. Couldn’t we do a special father–son half day?”
I know the answer, but I ask anyway on the chance that he might surprise me and say, “Yes.”
“You just want to get out of school. Not today, kiddo, but maybe when the weather is warmer, I can talk to your mudder about taking a day off.” Hearing him say “mother” that way reminds me that he was born in Denmark.
We walk ten minutes to the marina where his research boat is docked. I’ve been spending time aboard it since I was a baby. It’s why we moved to Maryland. It used to look a lot bigger. Dad says it feels smaller because I’m getting taller.
By the time we arrive at the lab on the research boat, my class is already there waiting for the field trip to begin.
I try to sneak into the lab without Suzie notic- ing but hit my head against the hatch.
Ow!
It’s hard to sneak past anyone in our class since I’m a whole foot taller than the next tallest kid. On top of that—literally on top of that—I have two inches of crazy dark brown curls. Get it? On top of that? And now, I’m the only 10-year-old boy
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in my class who has two homes and basically two of everything else.
I don’t think my dad remembers what a room full of twenty-three kids looks like because barely everyone in my class can fit inside Lab 6.
“Girgis Orenson-Gobrial, this is such a treat! We haven’t been out on a real field trip in years. It’s very kind of your father to arrange this for us. It fits in nicely with our science unit on changes in weather patterns.” Ms. Densen likes calling each of us by our full names. Mine is the worst—Dad’s Danish last name in the middle of two Egyptian names that “work” in America—Girgis for George and Gobrial for Gabriel. Everyone calls me Gir, pronounced “geeee-ar,” like the gears on a bike.
Everyone except for Suzie Sanders, who calls me “Gog the frog” and “Gog the dog” and all sorts of other Gogs.
“Ooh, Gog, did you bump your head. Did it hurt?!” she screeches as her curly red hair whips around. She gives me the side eye. Suzie’s been annoying since first grade. You would think she would stop by the fifth grade. But no.
Suzie looks me up and down with her bright green eyes over her pink glasses as I try to sneak myself past her.
“Are those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday? And pee-yew! What is that smell? Is
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that you, Gog, or one of your dad’s fish with the plastic in its stomach?”
There’s been a strange smell coming from the Chesapeake Bay lately. It smells especially bad today, like the time Leo and I had a farting con- test and made my bedroom stink for a month. I won, of course.
Before I can say anything, Olu turns around and says, “Whatever that smell is, it’s making my nose crinkle in a way that will not look good on my video channel.”
Olu is the class drama king and the school’s social media star. Today he’s wearing a bright green sweatshirt with the Nigerian flag on it, red jeans, and bright blue sneakers. Those three colors should never be worn together, but he pulls it off. He finds any way to bring color, dance, and jazz hands into everything. And because he’s Olu, it works.
Once I make it to the lab table, I shrink myself as much as I can—which is impossible.
The lab table is crowded with lots of glass bea- kers and containers. They’re filled with liquids in different shades of grey, blue, and clear. Every- thing’s bolted onto the table, so things don’t tip or fly all over the place in rough waters.
I’m pressed up against the lab table packed in tight between Leo and Olu. After years of trying to stay as far apart from all other human beings
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during the pandemic, it feels so weird to be this close to other people. Even my friends.
“Hey, Gir, coming in from your dad’s house again?” Leo stands on his tippy toes and whispers into my shoulder.
“Mhmm, you know how it is when he comes back from one of his long trips. Can I share your lunch with you again?” I’m so embar- rassed. Thank goodness vegan eggs lasted for six months in Dad’s fridge during his trip with- out going bad. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had any breakfast.
“I had my m-m-m-mom pack a double lunch today, just in case,” Leo answers. His face is a shade of yellow green I have never seen before.
“You’re the best!” I punch him in the arm. Leo’s been my best friend since the first grade. “I l-l-l-love field trips, but this b-b-b-oat is
making me a little woozy,” Leo says, holding onto the railing along the lab table. Everyone sways back and forth trying to get their balance as a large wake hits the research boat hard. Only a big or fast ship in the marina could cause this kind of a rocking motion.
Leo’s what I call an “indoor” kid. I can never talk him into going out for a bike ride or coming out on the water with my dad and me on any of our sailing trips.
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Dad squeezes himself through my classmates to the other side of the table. He looks more like himself than he did this morning on our walk to the marina.
“Welcome, classmates of Gir! Who can tell me what molecules make up water?”
Suzie’s hand shoots straight up in the air. “That’s easy. Hydrogen and oxygen.”
“That’s correct.What else is made up of oxygen?” he asks.
“The air, of course,” Suzie says. Show off.
“That’s good, Suzanne Sybil Sanders,” Ms. Densen says. “But let’s each take turns answering the questions.” The three SSS’s that make up Suz- ie’s initials remind me of a slithery snake. I can’t believe I started to miss her during the pandemic.
Yeah—no, I didn’t.
“What happens when the water or the air get
dirty?” Dad asks.
“Pollution. Dirty. Dirty pollution,” Olu blurts out. “That’s right, Olu,” Dad says. “What can happen
to people when there’s a lot of dirt in the air and the water?”
Leo raises his hand and asks, “People get sick?” “That’s correct, Leo. And who else might get sick? Anyone else know? How about you?” Dad
points to Izi.
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Wrong person, Dad.
Izi hardly ever speaks, except to tell people how to say her name, “Is he?” It’s funny because she’s not a he. She’s a she.
I can barely see her face through her long black hair. It’s her shield from the rest of us. Her wall. No one would know how good at science she is if Ms. Densen didn’t refer to her as the next Marie Curie, whose picture hangs above us in the classroom. When Izi does talk, it’s in short two- or three-word clips. I can barely hear her, but I like it when she talks. She’s really funny without trying to be. One time, she whispered the words “bird brain” after a bird pooped on Thomas’s head during PE.
Now she shakes her hair away from her face and mouths the word, “Fish,” but no sound comes out of her mouth.
Olu takes over, “Fish. It’s fish! Of course, he’s going to talk about fish. Fishy fish. Fish. That’s what Gir’s dad likes to talk to us about.”
I can feel my face get warm. Olu tries to be funny like this. But he’s not. “Olu!” I shake my head to try to get him to cut it out.
“Oh, Olu, you know me too well,” Dad smiles. “Fish. Today we are going to talk about water qual-
ity and fish.”
A loud voice from the back of the lab says,
“Bor-ringgg!”
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“Yes. You might think it’s boring, and that air and water pollution have nothing to do with the weather, but they’re all connected. Changing weather patterns are increasing the water temper- atures and levels. It’s also making it harder for fish to find food, forcing them to come closer to shore. This makes them more likely to eat garbage and plastic. Knowing something about water quality can help slow down changing weather patterns and help you and the fish to stay healthy.”
Good save, Dad.
“So, here we go. Which of these three mixtures,
which we call “solutions,” do you think is the most dangerous?” Dad points to a dark grey, a light grey, and a clear liquid.
I know it’s a trick question. Those are his favorites. It’s got to be the clear one. Everyone guesses the dark grey one. And, of course, just like I predicted, it’s the clear one. “All three con- tainers have water from the bay with different amounts of sediment, pollutants, and bacteria,” he explains.
Dad spends the next hour having groups of us test the water for different things—dirt, chemi- cals, and bacteria. “It’s easy to filter dirt out of water to have clean water. And you can kill bac- teria by boiling the water. But it’s much harder to get chemicals out of water. For each chemical, you
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need a specific solution or approach to get rid of it. Some treatments are filtering devices. Others are liquids. And some plants and animals provide a natural way to clean water.”
“Like an antidote?” Leo asks.
“Exactly like an antidote,” Dad answers. “But if these chemicals and bacteria spread too far, they become harder to control.”
“Like a pandemic,” Suzie says.
Dad’s eyebrow goes up the way it does when he’s
surprised by something. “Er, yes, like a pandemic.” “My dad’s company, ThermoPoly, was in charge of ending the pandemic,” Suzie adds. “His team
helped to get everyone vaccinated.”
Ugh! Not again. Why does she always find a
way to talk about her dad ending the pandemic? That’s not what my mom says. She says that Dr. Sanders takes credit for it because his company made the plastic for the syringes. And there was a whole team of mostly women around the coun- try who helped get everyone vaccinated. She would know because she’s one of them.
Dad has each of us go up one by one to test the different water containers. Then he has us use one of the filters to clean the water.
“Did you see that?” Olu asks Leo. “The water was grey. I hate grey. Talk about the most boring color ever. And now it’s clear. That’s amazing. Do
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it again. I want to get a good shot of this for my video channel!”
I look up past Leo, and there’s a set of beakers behind him that look clear—each marked TOXIN and a number. The highest number is 283.
Thomas asks, “If our water is clear, should we be worried that it could still have bacteria in it?”
Dad nods. “It probably has some bacteria in it, and that’s okay, but too much and/or the wrong kind can be dangerous. There are tests that you can do at home to see how clean your drinking water is. I will send some test strips to school with your teacher that you can use to see if your water has a lot or a little bit of bacteria in it. If you do have bacteria in your water, you can kill it by boiling your water before drinking it. Thanks for coming in today. I hope you found the lab interesting.”
Yes, yes, very interesting. Let’s get out of here before Suzie starts talking again.
“My family just gets bottled water, so it’s always clean,” Suzie says.
“Oh, no, she didn’t.” Olu looks at me and snaps his fingers.
Not bottled water. Anything but bottled water. Dad’s eyes get wide.
His big round face turns bright red under his
red, blond, and grey beard. Single. Use. Plastics. Or
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SUP, as I like to call them. This is the one thing he has fought his whole life over. I want to say some- thing, but it’s Suzie.
“Well, Suzie, do you remember our remote school lesson on plastics from last year?” Dad asks. “You see, instead of getting rid of plastic in the water like they should have done or research- ing ways to make plastic more biodegradable, ThermoPoly experimented with untested plastic- eating bacteria.—”
“My dad’s company would never do anything like that!” Suzie shouts. “My father would never let anything like that happen.”
Dad’s voice gets deeper, the way it does when I’m in trouble. I can tell he’s trying to keep his cool.
“For years, the world has refused to do anything about plastic until it got completely out of control. ThermoPoly thought the plastic-eating bacteria would be a quick fix. While it does eat plastic, it also releases a toxic substance into water that makes fish sick. The more plastic dumped into the water, the more the bacteria multiply and release more toxins into the water.”
Toxins?
That must be what those beakers have in them. Before he says anything else, a man in a suit
standing in the doorway clears his throat, wipes the sweat from his bald head with a handkerchief,
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and scowls at my dad in a way that screams, “Stop talking!” Dad looks up and begins putting his lab equipment away. “May I speak to you after your lesson, Dr. Orenson?” the man in the suit asks.
What’s a guy in a suit doing on Dad’s research vessel? That’s weird. Most people on the boat either wear jeans and button downs or lab coats.
“We’re just wrapping up,” my dad answers. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Plastic-eating bacteria? Now that sounds like a scary movie,” Olu squeals.
“Or f-f-f-fun video game!” Leo punches Olu in the shoulder.
“Hey, guys, I think this is serious. My dad’s been acting weird since he got back from his trip. And now, there’s a strange guy on the boat. . . Where did he come from?” I whisper.
“Is that why it smells so bad outside?” Olu asks loudly. “The smell is interfering with my artistic expression.”
“Huh? What does smell have to do with art?” I’m trying to have a serious conversation.
“It’s interfering with a lot more than that, Olu,” Dad leans down to Olu and Leo. “But let’s leave it at that for now.”
“You’re lying,” Suzie’s face turns the color of a red-hot tomato. “I’m going to tell my dad about this.”
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“That’s enough, Suzanne Sybil Sanders. Dr. Orenson, thank you for today’s field trip. I think it’s time to go back to school.” Ms. Densen waves us all out of the lab.
Suzie shoves me to the side as she storms past me.
Plastic-eating bacteria? Toxins? Sick fish?
Izi’s eyes peek out between her hair strands as she squeaks out two words, “Sick people?”
Dad hears her and shakes his head. “We don’t know yet.” He weaves himself through the class and out of the lab and says, “If you have any ques- tions, just ask Gir. I can have him bring you the answers.”
I hate when he says stuff like that. Now I’m going to get a million questions about plastic- eating bacteria. I won’t be able to remember any of the questions long enough to ask my dad and go back with the answer. What he should say is, “If you have any questions, look them up on the internet. That’s what it’s for. Answering questions.”
Everyone in the class is buzzing about plastic- eating bacteria, except Suzie, who is quiet.
Quiet.
I’m not sure which is worse. Loud Suzie or quiet Suzie. She looks mad.
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I want to say goodbye to Dad before I get on the school bus, so I turn back towards his office. Dad’s talking to one of his research assistants or RAs. I like to call them Ra, like the Egyptian god of the sun that has the head of a falcon. I learned all about Ra on a trip to Egypt with my mom, grandpa Giddo, and grandma Teta.
That was before the pandemic took Teta away and split up my parents.
I hear my dad saying to the Ra, “First, they dump their single-use plastics in the ocean. Then, they unleash these bacteria. And now, they think they can just come in here and nose around to see if I have any results from my research? I have to find that notebook. We’re so close to a solution. We worked so hard on that study. It’s nearly fin- ished. If we get that right, we can clean up their mess in a fraction of the time. If ThermoPoly thinks they can do it faster, they are fooling them- selves. It took us years to get to this place. We just need that notebook!”
Did ThermoPoly steal Dad’s notebook? What’s in the notebook? What’s Dad been working on?
I can be pretty sneaky and quiet when I want to be. I call it going into “stealth mode.” Teta used to tell me that I get that from Mom. I don’t think Dad sees me coming up behind Ra until I’m standing right in front of him.
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“Is this the famous Girgis?” the Ra asks. “He looks just like you.”
That’s the sort of horrible thing old people say as they pinch your cheek. Please don’t pinch my cheek. Except she’s not old.
“. . . Oh, hey, bud. What did you think of the field trip today? Was it as boring as you thought it would be?” His voice goes back to his normal Dad voice as he pulls me in for a side hug and messes up my hair, escorting me away from the Ra.
“It was okay,” I shrug.
“Just, okay? Tough crowd,” he responds. “You should go before they leave without you. I’ll pick you up from school. Tonight’s tacos and a movie. Cool?”
“Not tonight, remember? I have Science Club this afternoon and I’m staying at Mom’s tonight,” I say, trying not to sound annoyed. Something really must be wrong for Dad to get the schedule wrong like that.
“That’s right. Then, I’ll see you tomorrow after- noon. Have fun at school and good luck with Science Club. I love you,” he says.
“To the moon,” I answer.
“And back. Times googol,” he says. Googol’s my favorite number—ten to the one hundredth. I know, I’m a nerd.
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He follows me out to the bus where my class is and gives me a big bear hug. He stares at a big ship with the letters that spell out T-H-E-R-M- O-P-O-L-Y on the side that must have docked while we were in the lab. It’s a super high-tech large, grey, mean-looking boat. The sort of boat you see in action movies.
A couple of men in jumpsuits and protective gear are pushing a large metal container up the ship’s ramp. I’ve never seen a boat that big in this marina before. It looks so weird. What’s in the box? Plastic-eating bacteria?
Usually, Dad would say something about the ship, but all he does is squeeze me harder than usual.
I want to stay here and breathe in his beachy campfire smell.
I see Suzie jumping up and down smiling, clap- ping, and pointing at the boat, “That’s my dad’s company’s boat. It’s so much bigger than that research dinghy.”
Whoa, what?! Of all the ships in the world, why does it have to be Dr. Sanders’s ship?
I turn to wave goodbye to my dad as I get on the bus. He looks so small next to the ThermoPoly ship.
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"The Antidotes: Pollution Solution" is a book for children about a group of friends who work to solve a pollution problem in the Chesapeake Bay caused by a plastic-eating bacteria experiment gone wrong. The school has to close down again, but the friends, who call themselves the Antidotes, use STEM strategies to find clean water solutions and get the word out to kids around the world about how to stay safe. The story follows their journey as they race against the clock to achieve zero plastic use and prevent further harm to both fish and children.
The book "The Antidotes: Pollution Solution" by Dr. Patty Mechael is a delightfully engaging first book of a new series designed for middle schoolers. It is a book for children in which a group of friends work to solve a pollution problem in the Chesapeake Bay caused by a plastic-eating bacteria. The story takes place in a post-pandemic future, where a group of middle-schoolers become aware of a plastic-eating bacteria experiment that has gone terribly wrong, and which is threatening the health of the environment and humans.
They join forces with public health scientists and engage young people around the world to prevent a new pandemic. The characters are diverse, interesting, and well-developed. This book provides a powerful message to young people about their ability to make a difference and tackle the world's problems. The story is pretty entertaining and practical, and shows what can be done to solve challenges in the world today. It deals with real-time problems and how we all need to work together to join hands to save our future. It is a great inspiration for young people and has the potential to inspire future heroes. The book is aimed at promoting environmental awareness and activism in children, making it a good-read for the brilliant young minds.