Out Today! The fantastic "A Planet Full of Plastic" by Neal Layton (Hachette Children's Books)

I think if we could have chosen one author-illustrator to write the perfect eco-message book, it'd be Neal Layton.

The illustrator of the fantastic "Emily Brown" books (with Cressida Cowell) and author-illustrator of several brilliant stories, Neal's trademark collage / doodle style is absolutely perfect for "A Planet Full of Plastic".

This is a subject that has really hit home in recent years, particularly with us - and we like to consider ourselves as a family who take recycling seriously, but get completely frustrated by how much single use plastic appears in our weekly shop.

"A Planet Full of Plastic" moves through the history of this 'miracle' material, and how the world fell completely in love with the convenience of it - at the cost of the stuff sticking around far longer than intended, and beginning to take a toll on our planet, our oceans and all the animals that live here (including us of course!)

Plastic doesn't age, doesn't rot and in some cases can be recycled a finite number of times before it becomes useless, even dangerous.

Plastic was fantastic - but now we need to look at new ways of moving on from using it everywhere

Neal's book is entertainingly illustrated and brilliantly written, balancing the quite often serious and harrowing topics surrounding plastic pollution with a lighter touch of humour to try and show just how crazy the world's obsession with plastic really can be.

Best of all, kids will find a rallying call to action - simple things that they can do to cut down on the consumption of plastic, or to tidy up our beaches and habitats making the world a nicer (and healthier) place for all animals and plants, fish and fowl, and humans too.

Blue Planet II highlighted the horror of plastics in our oceans and how many animals die from consuming the horrible stuff

This is such a fantastic book, brilliantly suitable for classroom projects and school work based around  changing just a few things to cut our plastic consumption. But it's also great for home too, containing tons of facts and advice to help kids who want to make these changes themselves (and recruit their families into bucking their ideas up too!)

Absolutely awesome stuff as usual from a hugely talented writer-illustrator.

Sum this book up in a sentence: One of the best books on a subject that is really hitting the headlines at the moment, raising awareness with kids who are absolutely determined to get behind eco issues.

"A Planet full of Plastic" by Neal Layton is out today, published by Hachette (kindly supplied for review).