Children’s Literature: My Bag and Me!

My Bag and Me!, written by Karen Farmer and illustrated by Gary Currant, is a cute rhyming board book about the benefits of using reusable shopping bags. The little boy in the story has his own shopping bag he takes to the store. He also reminds his mother to do the same.

Then it’s off to the checkout where we’ve all been before. I hand over My Bag and say, “Paper and plastic no more!” We feel really good when our shopping is done. We’ve saved so many bags by using this one!

My Bag and Me! comes with a reusable, small shopping bag. My only criticism is that the bag is made from Tyvek, a Dupont product. Dupont doesn’t exactly have a clean environmental record, and Tyvek is not as long lasting or washable as a cloth shopping bag. Furthermore, the bag and book both claim to be 100% recyclable, although I’ve never seen Tyvek accepted at a recycling center, and neither bag nor book are made from post consumer content.

500 billion paper and plastic bags are used each year globally! These “free” bags actually cost $4 billion dollars a year, and thus consumers pay the price for them in other ways. It is also staggering to consider that it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to decompose, and we have all seen the litter they create.

I think that giving your child their own reusable shopping bag is a great idea! My daughter immediately asked if she could take the Tyvek bag to town with us today and use it for her shopping. She also filled it with goodies from our kitchen and pretended to be on a shopping spree. I think I will get her a cloth shopping bag that she can decorate as her very own. Just like the character in the book, if she remembers her bag, it is more likely that I will remember to use mine and not leave them at home.