Common Ground: The Water, Earth, and Air We Share

by Molly Bang, Molly Bang (Illustrator)

Overview

How do our individual actions affect the world? From the Caldecott Honor author Molly Bang, author-illustrator of the critically acclaimed Sunlight Series, this is a simple story of our planet's natural resources. Through the example of a shared village green and the growing needs of the townspeople who share it, Molly Bang presents the challenge of handling our planet's natural resources. With jewel-like paintings and simple text, Bang impresses upon us the urgency of conserving and preserving our earth's limited bounty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780590100564
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	10/01/1997
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.35(d)
Lexile:	740L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Molly Bang has written and illustrated more than twenty books for young readers, including When Sophie Gets Angry — Really, Really Angry... ; Ten, Nine, Eight; and The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher, each of which were Caldecott Honor books. Bang divides her time between Falmouth, Massachusetts, and Northern California.

Editorial Reviews

Conservation and responsibility for our shared natural resources is the heart of an allegory that inspires respect for the environment, described tidily in simple terms.

Once upon a time, villagers could bring sheep to a commons, "common ground" to everyone in the village. The eventual outcome—too many sheep and not enough grass—provides the historical example that is invoked repeatedly to explain problems and issues arising from present-day overuse of life-sustaining resources and global short-sightedness. Bang (Goose, 1996, etc.) outlines the depletion of the seas, forests, fossil fuels, and water in a series of pithy but easily comprehensible vignettes. Each tenet of basic ecology presented spins on the same axis—the concept of one earth, with limitations as to its renewability; then Bang drives home the "share the planet" precept in a dramatic denouement. Happy greens (grass) and sprightly blues (water, sky) give way to gray rooftops and smokestacks throughout, but it is the lone planet swirling against a canvas of black that is sure to stop readers in their tracks. It's a timely, provocative message, housed in a small, weighty book.

Kirkus Reviews