One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia
Title: One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia
Author: Miranda Paul
Illustrated: Elizabeth Zunon
Page Numbers: Unnumbered
Grade Level: 2+
Lexile Score: AD570L
Once plastic bags were novel and exciting. Now they have turned dangerous. When a bag breaks, it is thrown beside the road or on a garage heap. The bag becomes a home for growing mosquitoes or food for an unsuspecting goat. Mosquitoes carry deadly diseases, and bags make goats deathly ill. A woman named Isatou Ceesay notices this and searches for a way to use the old plastic bags.
She notices her sister crocheting and asks her to teach her how to crochet. Isatou has a wonderful idea! She invites some of her friends over. They retrieve the dirty, no-good, plastic bags. Then they wash them and cut them into strips to form a kind of thread. Next, they crochet them into different styles of bags. Then Isatou takes them into the city to sell. Many women like the bags that they have made. The bags sell like hot cakes. Isatou returns with enough money to buy a goat!
This is a wonderful story about enterprising women who turn a problem into a livelihood. It also encourages us to be involved in our own neighborhoods and to reuse and recycle. Through the courage of Isatou Ceesay, this book will inspire children and adults. It will inspire people to see not only the problems but to find the solutions. This book is definitely worth reading and even worth purchases. The story doesn’t flow as smoothly as it could. It has several incomplete transitions in the plot. That aside, it's a worthwhile read.
