Solar Story: How One Community Lives Alongside the World's Biggest Solar Plant (Green Power #4)

Rural Ghassate, Morocco--"in the top left-hand corner of the map of Africa" between the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert--has a mighty neighbor: the Noor power plant, the largest "concentrated solar power plant in the world." In kinetic, loose-lined illustrations washed with sunbaked hues, a group of classmates explores and explains topics including solar power, sustainability, and community development. The class visit to the plant frames statistics useful to young readers--it is "the size of 3,500 soccer fields, and contains 660,000 mirrors"--while lengthy sidebars dive into deeper discussions of Morocco, the plant, and its multidimensional impacts on sustainability. Drummond's author's note relates that he visited a school in Ghassate, which sparked the idea for this framing and, despite his initial "cultural shortsightedness" about the plant's placement ("not... in a highly developed country like the United States"), taught him that "solutions... can be found everywhere and require a global perspective." Ages 4-8. (Mar.)

"Loose lines and cheery watercolors are equally deft at describing energetic, ebullient kids and the vast power plant. . . a surprisingly complex yet accessible exploration. A valuable look at sustainability and development." —Kirkus Reviews