Let’s Walk to School

Let’s Walk to School is one of six books in Crabtree’s “Good to Be Green” series that encourages children to embrace environmentally friendly habits. The copyright pages in all the books contain a number of suggested “Before, During and After Prompts” while the penultimate page, “A note about sharing this book”, is directed at any adults who are reading the book with (a) child(ren).This section explains the book’s purpose and suggests ways that adults can use the book with children. The “Good to Be Green” books have all been illustrated by Diane Ewen whose cartoon style artwork presents readers with multiracial characters.

In Let’s Walk to School, the focus is on air pollution, especially that caused by automobile emissions. The storyline for this book begins with a weak premise. Because Tom doesn’t like school and wants to stay home, his working mother’s response is not to ask why he dislikes school. Instead, she just decides to drive him there. The next day is hot, “too hot to walk” according to Tom, and so Mom drives him again, a pattern that is repeated the next day when there’s a thunderstorm, and “it’s too wet to walk”. Finally, while chauffeuring Tom to school again, Mom gets stuck “in the worst traffic jam, ever” and declares:

“I’ve had enough of this!” said Mom. “No excuses– you’re walking to school tomorrow!”

“I’m going to take the train to work,” said Mom, “And you can walk, whatever the weather is like.”

In a number of instances, the author, via text printed on a green background, adds some factual information related to an event in the story. For instance, when Mom said she was going to take the train to work, on the facing page, Chancellor explained, “You can help reduce traffic on the roads by walking or taking public transportation, such as trains, buses, street cars, and subways.”

Following Let’s Walk to School’s main text, Chancellor provides a five-question true/false test plus a “Get Active” page that offers four suggestions to the book’s readers regarding their becoming more active. The first asks children if they “make any unnecessary car journeys’ and if they could “think of another way to make those journeys”. The second calls for children to have an adult take them on a bus or train ride and to take photos during this trip. Following the trip, children then create a photo story of that trip. The third suggestion calls for readers to poll their classmates regarding how they get to school, and to bar graph the results. Finally, after looking for stories in the news about extreme weather events around the world, students are to: “Make a collage of dangerous weather events that may be made worse by global warming.” Overall, the suggestions actually appear to be very non-active. The book’s final page is shared by a glossary and an index, with the former consisting of words that had been bolded in the text.

The storyline in Let’s Walk to School is really not very effective in getting across the book’s point of reducing the air pollution caused by cars. It’s adults and not children who drive cars, and so, to a large degree, the book’s message is being aimed at the wrong family member. And while Mom apparently just drove Tom to school, there are many parents who also pick their children up after school. Many of them arrive early (to get a parking/pick-up spot?) and then sit in their cars with the engines running, (and not just during “inclement’ weather), thereby also contributing to air pollution. As part of the book’s contents, Chancellor needed to incorporate the idea of schools establishing no-idling zones.