Bag in the Wind

K-Gr 5—An ordinary plastic bag "just the color of the skin of a yellow onion" blows away from a landfill and begins a journey that briefly touches the lives of many people in the community in this environmental tale (Candlewick, 2010) by Pulitzer-Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser. After it gets caught in a tree and a red-winged blackbird pecks at it, a girl finds the bag caught in a barbed wire fence and uses it to carry aluminum cans she is selling to earn some extra money. The bag blows away several times as different people pick it up to use it or save it to use later. Finally, a man sells it along with many other plastic bags to a woman at a secondhand store. The girl who first found the bag buys a baseball glove and baseball at the store, and her purchase is put into the very same bag. Kooser lyrically tells the story of the bag in an understated way. Barry Root's soft watercolor- and-gouache paintings enhance the text. Kirby Ward gently and expressively narrates the story. accompanied by soft instrumental background music. A note at the end of the book offers facts about recycling plastic bags.—Teresa Wittmann, Westgate Elementary, Edmonds, WA