Aria the Albatross has a problem: she and her seabird friends are throwing up our discarded garbage. Determined to find out why, she sets out on a long-distance flight across the Pacific Ocean. On her journey, she meets other wildlife troubled by trash. Sea Turtle is choking on a plastic bag, Seal is trapped in a strapping band, and Whale is tangled in ghost fishing nets.

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Aria masters both wind and waves, seeking the causes of marine debris and witnessing its tragic effects. Humans, she learns, are both the culprits and the solution. Learn through the eyes of an albatross as you follow Aria’s adventure while she finds courage and hope amid an ocean of garbage.

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Aria is the witness to our dirty deeds, and her meetings with other wildlife mirror our own emotions when confronted with the enormity of our collective crimes: her own shock, the sadness of the Sea Turtle, the anger of the Seal, and the exhaustion and resignation of the Whale.

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The causes and effects of our pollution in oceans are revealed as a compelling message that is not only delightfully illustrated but also poetically memorable. When the result of our collective consumerism ends up fouling some of the most elegant, endangered, and remote-living of wildlife, our sense of responsibility to the oceans and its creatures must be questioned.

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Garbage Guts was inspired by Dr. Heidi Auman’s research on the effects of marine debris on Midway Atoll’s Laysan albatross.

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