An Adventure in Animal Ethics and Self-Discovery
Metro Boston, MA, 6/15/2018 — Four teen storytellers offer all readers, but particularly those aged 11 to 14, an adventure in animal ethics entitled The Dolphin Rescue. In this lively tale, fourteen girls with special powers attempt to help change a dolphin fishing drive in Japan. They hope to allow residents to see that dolphins living in their community deserve to be treated with value. After a calamity seizes the town, the girls, local community members, and dolphins save the day. As a result, the town’s people begin to evolve their thinking about the need to balance human need with the treatment of the dolphins.
The book, with its sixty-four color illustrations, received important validation for its manga-style mix of story and edgy illustration. The eleven- to fourteen-year-old readers are past young children’s fiction but are not interested in young adult novels with high-school issues of sexuality, substance use, and violence. A large number of kids in this niche are reluctant readers who are ready for important topics. The style of The Dolphin Rescue offers an exciting tale but with plenty of pictures to interest the reader to delve deeper into the adventure. According to librarians, there are few engaging books for reluctant readers, and librarians welcome this newly published work for this forgotten niche of readers.
The story also follows a growth in understanding of the teens. They go from empathizing solely with the plight of dolphins, to developing a broader empathy for the struggles of the local townspeople. As the teens learn of the historical precedent for the dolphin hunt ritual and the extreme lack of viable alternative economic opportunity available to the people, they begin to understand that helping to find a solution is complicated. Finding viable alternative economic opportunities is explored further in the book’s website teaching activity, at www.miniworld.net.
Dr. Paul Waldau of Canisius College and visiting professor of animal law at Harvard Law School says that the storytellers “bestow on each reader the gift of a hopeful future.” A teacher in Massachusetts, Brian Salmon, adds, “The book offers a message important to our world. I’m making it required reading and encouraging other teachers to do the same.”
The Dolphin Rescue is a creation of Spartacus Media Enterprise®. The print book can be ordered from Miniworld.net or Amazon. Its ebooks can also be ordered from Amazon beginning on July 19th, 2018