• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

★ "An excellent resource on the topic." —School Library Journal, starred review

In the developed world, if you want a drink of water you just turn on a tap or open a bottle. But for millions of families worldwide, finding clean water is a daily challenge, and kids are often the ones responsible for carrying water to their homes. Every Last Drop looks at why the world’s water resources are at risk and how communities around the world are finding innovative ways to quench their thirst and water their crops. Maybe you’re not ready to drink fog, as they do in Chile, or use water made from treated sewage, but you can get a low-flush toilet, plant a tree, protect a wetland or just take shorter showers. Every last drop counts!

Michelle is the author of several books for children, and she enjoys telling the stories of kids who seize life's opportunities. When growing up in Port Moody, British Columbia, her favourite spot was the library. She loved cracking open the cover of a novel, taking a deep breath, and jumping into another life.

At university, Michelle studied literature, and between courses, she helped dig a water pipeline in the Dominican Republic and flipped burgers for a summer at a McDonald's in Germany. After graduating, she cycled 6000 kilometres across Canada, became a travel writer, taught creative writing in the Arctic, and worked as a simulated patient for medical students to practice on. She also married the pen pal that she'd been writing to since she was fourteen years old, and together they traveled around his home country of Argentina.

Michelle began writing for kids because she's always loved reading children's books. These days, when she's not writing or going on adventures, she enjoys reading, swimming, baking, hiking, and pedaling her bicycle around Victoria, British Columbia, where she lives with her husband and daughter. For more information about Michelle and her books, please visit her website at www.michellemulder.com.

 

Michelle Mulder's profile page

• Short-listed, The Nature Generation Green Earth Book Award
• Short-listed, Young Readers' Choice Book Awards of British Columbia (YRCABC) Red Cedar Book Award
• Winner, Santa Monica Public Library - The Green Prize for Sustainable Literature
• Short-listed, Forest of Reading Silver Birch Fiction Award
• Commended, CCBC Best Books for Kids & Teens, starred selection

"Packs a lot of punch with its very informed look at drinkable water situations in various countries around the world."

Southwestern Ohio Young Adult Materials Review Group

"This accessible and engaging nonfiction book sheds important research about water around the world. The author combines personal stories with interesting facts to raise awareness in an effort to encourage personal responsibility about water usage...Classroom and school libraries will want to include this important nonfiction book in a text set about sustainability of natural resources."

Reading Today Online

"Young people will be amazed by the global initiatives: filtering arsenic-contaminated water in Bangladesh with iron nails, harvesting fog to gather fresh water in Chile, and more. Catchy 'Go with the Flow' headings, startling water facts, and color photos of children collecting and conserving water around the world make this high-interest reading."

Booklist

"Through accessible language, this text supports environmental and ecological inquiries while also raising awareness about global initiatives."

The Dragon Lode

"Mulder's conversational style is very readable and she tells so many anecdotes of families and communities around the world that this is a fascinating book."

Resource Links

"This engaging book takes on the important task of explaining clean drinking water to middle school students...The writing style is a very accessible mixture of personal travel stories and interesting facts ..It can be hard to find good books on sustainability issues for middle school students. This well-written book will be a welcome addition to any classroom or library collection. It will support any research on water usage and will be popular with students interested in getting involved with environmental issues. Highly Recommended."

CM Magazine

★ "Ideal for reports, the book is packed with great information on everything from the way civilizations have collected and used water throughout history, sobering assessments of the present and future availability of clean water, and intriguing solutions already employed, such as fog catchers, or that are still in their experimental stages. Worthwhile factoids, sidebars, and interesting photographs accompanied by instructive captions add to the abundance of meaningful material. Mulder is honest about the emergency unfolding around this precious resource, and though the situation is fairly dire, she empowers her readers by offering feasible suggestions that individuals can use to improve things. And like raindrops falling into a collection barrel, each and every single conscientious action adds up. An excellent resource on the topic."

School Library Journal, starred review

"An intriguing juncture of archeology and architecture with ecology...Innovative and upbeat, Mulder avoids the doom-and-gloom that besets studies of natural resources by celebrating the role of water in everyday activity and fun.”

VOYA

"Mulder’s book will make readers stop and calculate...Lavishly illustrated with everything from woodcuts to photographs, the book is far from downbeat and scolding...Mulder writes with a clean, no-nonsense style...Informative, attractive and alarming—readers will think twice before leaving the water running as they brush their teeth."

Kirkus Reviews

"Nothing could have prepared me for the wealth of information presented in Every Last Drop...What makes these forty-eight pages of nonfiction so wonderful for readers is the style chosen by Michelle Mulder to present the efforts of her research...Liberal use of photographs, diagrams and sketches become a part of the layout and design of the text making...[it] an outstanding nonfiction title. Every collection will want to have a copy of this pertinent presentation on a timely topic."

Librarian's Quest blog

"[Mulder] uses personal stories and includes many well-researched facts to make the telling personal and of great interest to those who read her book. The beautiful, clear photographs up the interest...The captions are informative and useful for classrooms."

Sal's Fiction Addiction blog