Seas the Day™!

Inspiration and information to protect Our
Ocean

Each month in 2006, The Ocean Project will highlight a book focused on our blue planet or environmental sustainability. Books for all age groups will be covered, non-fiction and fiction, prose and poetry. If you have a suggestion, please let us know.

PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA, by Holling Clancy Holling was first published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1941 but this award-winning book remains timeless. With its beautiful illustrations, the captivating story will fill any child (or adult) with wonder. Even if you read this as a child it's worth rediscovering as an adult. While it's geared toward a younger audience (approximately 8-12 year olds) the book's inspirational and educational value about the Great Lakes region, its geography and natural history, and how all flows to the sea will appeal to the adventuresome inner spirit in all of us.

The story starts with a young Indian boy carving a small canoe with a kneeling figure and names it Paddle-to-the-Sea. Throughout the book's 64 pages, Paddle flows through different regions, from headwaters in melting snow north of Lake Superior, through streams, ponds, and then on to the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River and, eventually, after four years, the Atlantic Ocean. Each of the two dozen chapters charts the canoe's journey and provides learning opportunities about the waterways, animals, and industries encountered.

The book provides wonderful opportunities to learn about aquatic habitats, and how we all live in a watershed that drains to the ocean. While the story of a raindrop's journey to the sea has been done in other books, exhibits, and activities, this story's unique perspective from the eyes of Paddle-to-the-Sea makes for a stronger bond with the reader. Perhaps it will inspire the reader to find a stream that flows through her town, trace the route of that stream as it merges with other streams to become a river, and ultimately makes its way to the ocean.

Paddle-to-the-Sea is an unforgettable book that every child should have the opportunity to experience and that every adult should read to renew his sense of adventure, imagination, and connectedness.

If you’re interested in reading this book, please visit your local library or you can purchase it (and help us at the same time).
If you're interested in purchasing this book, we encourage you to buy locally and from an independent bookseller. Please click on one of the two logos below to purchase a good read and help The Ocean Project. For any purchase you make online by linking directly from this website to either the legendary independent bookseller, Powell's, or an independent bookstore in your community participating with Book Sense (if the latter, they will prompt you for your zip code to find the closest participating bookstore), a small commission will be sent to The Ocean Project to help us continue our nonprofit educational mission, thanks to you!

Click here to order
from your local independent
bookseller

Click here to order
from Powell’s Books
If you have any suggestions for a future “Ocean Book of the Month”, please let us know. Send us your favorite recent or not-so-recent read so we can share it with all!

Visit
The Ocean Project
Web Site