Moby-Duck
The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea & of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists & Fools Including the Author Who Went in Search of Them
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 1, 2011 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781461832379
- File size: 450012 KB
- Duration: 15:37:31
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Prompted by the accidental dumping of 7,200 yellow "rubber" (they're actually PVC plastic) duckies into the Pacific Ocean (along with thousands and thousands of other plastic animal toys), the author documents his Ahab-ian quest as he follows the path of these toys from their manufacture to their worldwide retrieval by beachcombers. He explores every element of the drama, including the genesis of toy manufacture, the origins of beachcombing, the cultural impact of anthropomorphism, and even the meaning of childhood. (Much of the author's quest takes place as his wife is expecting their first child.) Though the duckies are cute and trivial, the upshot of their journey is monumentally sad. For example, they will circulate in the North Pacific Great Garbage Patch, a Texas-sized repository of floating plastic, for at least half-a-century. Narrator Christopher Evan Welch does an excellent job of delivering the first-person narrative voice, offering a nuanced reading with a mix of bewilderment and wonder. R.W.S. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine -
Starred review from October 25, 2010
Whimsical curiosity begets a quixotic odyssey and troubling revelations about plastics polluting the seas in former high school teacher and journalist Hohn's charming account of what he learned searching for 28,800 rubber bath toys lost at sea in 1992. His curiosity, prompted by a student's quirky essay, begins in 2005 around Sitka, Alaska, where yellow "duckies," frogs, turtles, and beavers washed up after three-story waves buffeted a container ship traveling from China to America. Hohn, a senior editor at Harper's magazine, eventually tracks more rogue ducks bobbing up from isolated Gore Point, Alaska, to Maine beaches. The author's quest leads him to a research vessel trawling for degraded plastic in Hawaiian seas, to the Chinese factory where the toys were manufactured, aboard a container vessel traversing the same route as the original ship (a particularly hair-raising section), and finally to the high Arctic to study the science of oceanic drift. Packed with seafaring lore and astute reporting, this enthralling narrative is the Moby Dick of drifting ducks.
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