Soap maker donates Wild Tribe Heroes books to Northam Library

An eco-friendly soap maker has donated a collection of children’s books to Northam Library to help educate more young people about the need to protect our environment. 

North Devon Soap presented the library with a collection of the Wild Tribe Heroes books by Ellie Jackson. 

They are gentle and engaging true stories about animals that find themselves in trouble when their lives are affected by plastic in the oceans, palm oil deforestation or climate change. 

Ellie wrote her first book, Duffy’s Lucky Escape, after living on Magnetic Island in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. She and her young family saw a turtle called Duffy being released back into the ocean after a year of treatment for ingesting plastic. 

She said: “My children and I were transfixed by the sight of this beautiful creature being set free, and subsequently visited a turtle hospital on the mainland to find out more.  

“Once my children had made the link between plastics and turtles they were inspired to pick up litter from beaches so that they could help protect turtles and other sea life.” 

In this way, Ellie, an environmental scientist who taught geography for six years, came up with the idea to use children’s books as a way of educating young people about the threat to the marine environment from plastic. 

Helen Cross, founder of North Devon Soap, added: “Educating children about the challenges faced by our natural world really helps.  

“Libraries play a pivotal role in furthering the knowledge of our children. Not every parent can spare the cash to invest in these books but borrowing from the library has the same impact.”