Ethicool Books - Watermelon Pip

Watermelon 🍉, it was sassy little Pip's favourite food in the whole world. And she didn't like to share it with anyone. But when the watermelon supply ran out, Pip had to learn to improvise. And then she had to learn to share the fruits of her labour!  

An utterly gorgeous kids' book about sustainability and sharing.

Recommended ages: for 0 - 6yrs old

Author: Sharna Carter

Illustrator: Stella Mongodi

What is this picture book about? 

Blue-eyed pip is juicy-sweet, but mightily sassy, too! She eats watermelon for breakfast, lunch and tea, sharing with no-one, no matter how hard they try. One day, though, the watermelon supply dries up. There are no watermelons at the little shop, the big shop, or the online shop. Not one. Pip has a sinking feeling in her hungry, little tummy.

That is, until she remembers all those watermelon pips she used to spit over the fence while swinging on her tyre swing! She scales the fence, and sure enough, right there is a joyous garden of homegrown watermelons! Pip is overjoyed! But, just as she's about to begin devouring that juicy flesh, she remembers all the hungry faces with whom she never shared.

She knows what she has to do 😉 And, so begins one of the most beautiful endings to one of the most heartwarming children's picture books you're ever likely to read.

An excerpt from the story

Watermelon was Pip’s favourite food in the whole wide world. She loved its bright pink colour. 

She loved the taste of its sweet, crunchy flesh. She loved that it had its very own handle when cut into triangles.

Pip loved watermelon so much she kept it all to herself. There wasn’t enough for her classmates. 

There wasn’t enough for her very best friend, Indie. And there definitely wasn’t enough for her brother, Luca.

----

Pip sat on her tyre swing thinking about all of the watermelon she had wasted and how on days like this she loved spitting those little seeds over the fence. 

"Of course!" 

Pip ran to the fence, peered over and saw... 

A garden of watermelons!

Pip rushed inside and began to devour her watermelon. But instead of happiness she had that sinking feeling in her tummy. 

Pip knew what she had to do.

She harvested all of the watermelons and delivered the biggest one to her classmates. She found Indie and gave her the perfect triangle. Then she chopped some cubes for Luca. 

Word quickly spread about Pip’s watermelons. 

They were the pinkest, sweetest, crunchiest watermelons anyone had ever tasted.

From the author, Sharna Carter: why do we need a kids’ book about sustainability?

It's so easy for our little ones to develop behaviours of over-consumption these days. After all, there is a whole world of material things at their fingertips, literally just a button-click away. It's so easy to buy something here and throw it away there, all without thinking about the consequences.

But what if we taught the joys of becoming self-sufficient? What if we could encourage our little tots to grow their own juicy fruits? And, even more, what if we could inspire them to share with others and relish in the feeling of generosity?

I think we can all do this. And that's why I wrote Watermelon Pip, a story I'm deeply proud of, and a truly gorgeous introduction to sharing and sustainability for the world's children.

We write about sustainability, because we care about sustainability

We create gorgeous children’s books with a message. But when we produce them, we also send a message. 

The overwhelming majority of the world’s children’s books are produced in high-polluting factories, with non-recycled paper and petroleum-based ink, which is terrible for the environment. Here at Ethicool, we knew that wasn’t an option for us - we couldn’t very well contribute to the problem we were trying to solve. That’s why Ethicool books are printed on recycled papers, using soy-based, environmentally safe inks.