BlogUofTO

By Da Beattie

Do you ever miss high school? If so, then young adult books are for you. Less of a genre and more of an age group, young adult books are targeted to teens and feature teens as their main characters. 

If you normally spend your spare time out and about, a task harder to justify as covid numbers rise in Ontario, reading could be the solution. If you don’t have the space or the money, the library has about 100 locations across Toronto. After months of books being pick-up only, the library has re-opened to allow shelf browsing. After returning books only through the outdoor drop box, books stay in quarantine for approximately 6-8 days before being put back on the shelf. 

From fantasy, dystopian, contemporary, and romance, here is a list of my favourite 2020 young adult reads. 

1. Four Days of You and Me by Miranda Kennealy  
2. The Upside of Falling by Alex Light 
3. If We Were Us by K. L. Walter 
4. Project Emma by Hannah Kay
5. Just a Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe by Sarah Mylnowski 
6. Havenfall by Sara Holland 
7. The Map from Here to There by Emery Lord
8. Throw Like a Girl by Sarah Henning 
9. Majesty by Katharine McGee 
10. Meet Me at Midnight by Jessica Pennington 

By Da Beattie

I first discovered David Attenborough through my living room cupboard. Amongst many other DVD’s was the Planet Earth full DVD collection of 5. Back when our TV was a cube, and you had to rewind the VHS, the DVDs seemed like a new foreign adventure.

In light of his new Netflix original documentary, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, I thought I would go through some of my favorite nature documentaries.

Planet Earth would be the most iconic. I may have watched Planet Earth II before Planet Earth, but it was then when I fell in love with David Attenborough’s iconic narration. Blue Planet is the ocean version of Planet Earth, and both are produced by BBC Earth.

Our Planet, a Netflix original series, is also narrated by David Attenborough. Possibly more interesting than the actual series Our Planet: Behind the Scenes takes you to the site of the film and to the everyday struggles of filming in different conditions.

Although not narrated by David Attenborough, one of my favorite Netflix original series is Night on Earth. Less than sixty minutes, each episode is a great before bed documentary. The six episodes take you across the earth, filming never seen before activity that occurs only in the dark. Using thermal imaging cameras and other technology, Netflix also takes you behind the scenes in Night on Earth: Shot in the Dark.

If you are looking for more of a story, DisneyNature has gone across the world and turns each documentary into stories with characters.
If you’ll now excuse me, I am going to watch Dancing with Birds.

By Da Beattie

For our first post I thought we could start by talking about Justin Trudeau’s latest announcement to ban single use plastics. This includes straws, stir sticks, grocery bags and more.

To a regular person like me this seems like a good thing. But if you have taken to social media recently or in the past you may have seen some controversy. Many disabled people rightfully have voiced their issues with straws and ableism saying that a straw ban is another form of how the world was not made for people with disabilities. As an abled person myself, I am unsure of how to feel about this, but like any teenager, I made my way to Starbucks.

If you have been to Starbucks recently you may have noticed that they have paper gift cards and paper straws. The signature melt in your mouth feel we all associate with meringues can now be associated with a Starbucks drink.

But did you know that paper coffee cups are not recycle? Because they are coated in plastic/wax, only the plastic cold cups are recycle. Even then, according to National Geographic, only 9% of recycled items actually get recycled (Parker, 2018). In a pandemic where reusable cups are largely not accepted, we must reduce our usage and reliance on disposables.

An easy way to start is to wash out Ziploc bags. Although many companies have started producing reusable alternatives to plastic bags such as Stasher bags which are made of silicone, Ziploc bags are easy to wash due to their flexible but sturdy plastic nature. Because they can hold a shape when creased, they are also easy to dry without having to use a stand to prop the bag open.

I hope this first article has found you in a good place. If you would like to write for BlogUofTO please do not hesitate to email bloguofto@outlook.com

Sources

Parker, Laura. 2018. “Here’s how much plastic trash is littering the earth.” National Geographic.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/