This is such a beautiful and powerful illustrated children's book, uniquely presented in both English and Spanish on every page. It's exactly the kind of book our youngest citizens (scratch that – all citizens) need: a gentle yet inspiring book about the dangers of ocean pollution and the urgent need to help heal the earth.

This is framed through the story of two Chilean children who encounter a sea lion tangled in an abandoned fishing net while swimming. The sea lion begs for help, and the children free their ocean friend and wonder what to do with the net. With the help of a bird, they recycle it into something useful again – something better than new, or mejor que nuevo – echoing Patagonia's own company ethos.

That said, I would've loved if this book talked a little more (or at all) about the responsibility, fault, and need for change of large corporations, rather than just pinning it on individuals (and small ones, at that) to solve the ocean plastic crisis. The book also could have been a few pages longer, perhaps integrating some other messages such as reducing consumption, lobbying and voting for change, and doing things differently than we have in the last few centuries.

I really hope Patagonia continues to publish books about the beauty and delicacy of our natural world. Closer to the Ground by Dylan Tomine is one of my favourite non-fiction books of the last few years, and I recently loved Sweet in Tooth and Claw by Kristin Ohlson.

My digital edition didn't do this book justice, really – I know it would be a real treasure as a hard copy.

Thank you to Patagonia for the ARC.

Lake Buckley provides exactly the right illustrations for the bilingual book Better Than New / Mejor que nuevo, so evocative of magical realism and Frida Kahlo. Isidora and Julián head out for swimming and shell collecting on a Chilean beach; what they get instead is an encounter with a sea lion entangled with a net. That they free the unfortunate creature is a foregone conclusion. The real lesson begins with what to do with the fishing net? And with the many others?

Robert Broder has crafted a magical picture book that warns of the dire nature of the oceans and entreats readers — young and old — to repair the damage to our waters. I highly, highly recommend this book that will be cherished by young and old.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Patagonia in exchange for an honest review

I loved this story about the importance of keeping our oceans clean. The artwork is gorgeous and I loved that it was written in both Spanish and English. Perfect for anyone trying to one or the other of these languages.

This book's message is timely, crucial, and well-intentioned. While the illustrations are captivating, the text sounds preachy and wooden. The topic and the audience deserve more vivid, engaging language. I'm a big Patagonia fan, and I'm also a fan of children's literature. In terms of excellence, this doesn't seem to meet Patagonia's standards.

This is a colorful and beautifully curated children’s book with an important message about ocean life. My children and I delighted in the imagery and it was fun to read it in two languages, albeit my Spanish is rusty at best. This book would make a great addition to any classroom or personal library.

Better Than New: A Recycle Tale is a beautifully illustrated fully bilingual story about recycling and stewardship by Rob Broder. Due out 24th May 2022 from Patagonia, it's 44 pages and will be available in hardcover format.

This is such an engaging story for young readers (~4-8 years of age). The theme of protecting our Earth and taking care of our oceans and our fellow creatures is told in age appropriate words and pictures in both Spanish and English on each page.

Well written and beautifully illustrated, this would be a good choice for public or school library acquisition. It would make a nice bedtime read as well and the pictures are full of small details which invite readers to take a closer look.

Five stars. Charming and worthwhile.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

a great way to introduce children to ocean pollution and ways to help! the resources in the back offer children the opportunity to take action after reading and understand more about the climate crisis and what is happening to our planet and wildlife. the illustrations were amazing and help convey the tone of each page, and i loved the bilingual concept. perfect for the young environmentalist.

Thank you #NetGalley and Patagonia for an arc of 'Better Than New.'

This is the first children's book from Patagonia, the company known for including environmental action in their mission and business. Beautifully illustrated, this bilingual story features two Chilean children who decide to take action after encountering a sea lion tangled in an abandoned fishing net. The children are dismayed by the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean so they work together with their community to create something new and useful from the nets they pull from the water. The company's message is clearly shown throughout--the nets even become clothing--but the corporate inclusion works to open readers' eyes to the importance of recycling and the need to clean up our oceans. In addition to the environmental message, I appreciated how the English and Spanish storytelling were woven into the pages, alternating throughout so neither language feels like the primary or translated language. Another bonus--the publisher is taking a more eco-friendly approach in the creation of this book, choosing materials that will reduce the use of trees and water during production.

In a small fishing village in Chile, Isidora and Julian explore the ocean. Soon they hear a call for help, a sea lion is entangled in a fishing net. They see more and more trash in the ocean and asked themselves how did this happen?

They want to help their sea friends live happily and safely in the ocean.

They learn about recycling and turning ocean trash into something new.

Patagonia’s first picture book is a uniquely illustrated bilingual story told in English and Spanish about the impact of pollution and also the impact on what people, like Isidora and Julian, can do to reverse it all to make the world a better place.

The backmatter offers insightful message on ocean pollution.
Did you know? Eighteen billion pounds of waste go into the ocean every YEAR

Thank you Patagonia for the opportunity to review your debut picture book coming out on May 24!

3.5 stars

This picture book promotes upcycling, recycling, waste/trash, vigilance, empathy, and inclusion via Brown main characters and two languages (English and Spanish). I feel like it could have benefitted from being longer and including more resources or options other than a recycling center, but at least this gets the conversation started. There is also a nifty breakdown from Patagonia about what went into producing the physical book, which again can only trigger interest for those wanting to do more and change things.

The unusual art style is refreshing (although the scene inside the recycling center is, uh, a choice). The longer you look at certain pages, the more animals and the like you see.

Isidora and Julian are playing in the ocean when they hear a cry. They discover a sea lion is stuck in a net. After saving their new friend, they wonder what they can do with the net so this doesn't happen again. They decide to make it something different, something better than new. Mejor que nuevo!

This is a fantastic bilingual book geared towards children 4 - 8 years old to help them understand recycling and caring for the environment. We follow Isidora and Julian as they work together with their animal friends to help recycle and clean up debris in the ocean. Children will learn about "ghost nets" and they can harm marine life. They will also read about different ways animals recycle, as well! The illustrations are absolutely beautiful and help us to remember just how wonderful nature is. The story concludes with a note about Bureo, a company that helps reduce ghost nets and establish recycling programs. Overall, I am excited that an English and Spanish children's book is available to teach our youth about turning something harmful into something "mejor que nuevo!" As a Hispanic, bilingual family, it's a win for us!

I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved thst this book was in Spanish and English! The illustrations were abstract but flowed really nicely. It was cool to see how nets can be melted down and turned into clothes! This is a great introduction to recycling or reusing and not littering without being overbearing or preachy. There's a cool fact section at the end of the book as well.

This book was filled with such great detail to the story, "Better Than New / Mejor con Nuevo" (which I would've titled "Mejor que Nuevo" is a story written in English and in Spanish, side by side, so not only is it telling you a great story about the importance of protecting our waters it is also giving you a side-by-side translation of the story.
It is a story of two friends, Isidora and Julian that live in a fishing village in Chile. They go swimming in the ocean and find that a friend is in trouble, not only do they save their friend they realize how dirty the ocean has become and think of a way to fix it. By sharing their idea, their community comes together to solve a problem.
Isidora and Julian then take what they gathered to a recycling center, seeing who is working in the recycling center was my favorite part because it was unexpected. The story discusses what happens in the recycling center and what can be made from recycling certain materials, encouraging others to do so, because by recycling and cleaning their oceans their friends were safe, healthy, and the water was clean.

Thank you NetGalley and Patagonia for giving me the opportunity to read an e-Arc copy of this unique and interesting book.

My obsession with the ocean and environmental conservation brought me to wanting to request for this book. Besides the bilingual format of English and Spanish languages as i loved learning languages and Spanish is one of the foreign languages that i loved to learn and wish to be fluent someday. I am glad that i got all of those things from this book. Besides,it is an easy to follow story with beautiful and brightly coloured visuals that accompany the story.

I believe this story is an advert promoting a cause of recycling, recycling the garbages that polluted the oceans and turn them into something better and useful. Hence, the term "Mejor Con/Que Nuevo" is coined. The thing that confuses me is how the title keeps changing, sometimes it is 'Con' Nuevo, sometimes it is 'Que' Nuevo. So which is which? Which one's the correct one? Que/Con?. As i am neither a Spanish speaker nor is fluent in it, so i find the overlapping usage of those words confusing to me.

The concept of promoting recycling in this book is written in a short and simple story-telling format where two teenage siblings from Chile, Isidora and Julian went to the beach with their parents and heard a plea for help from a sea lion as they were swimming in the sea. It seems that the sea lion and its friends get entangled in a discarded fishing net and needed help with removing those nets from them.

As they dove down into the sea to help release those entangled nets, they saw a lot of garbages including plastics (another major threat to the ocean's wildlifes) at the bottom of the sea. Even though, plastics especially microplastics is one of the major sources of pollutants to the ocean, the focus of this story however is of fishing nets/the ghost nets. Then, they started thinking on what they could do to rid the ocean off the nets? and they finally got the idea of turning those discarded fishing nets into something useful with the help of a bird (which explains the usage of some magical/fantasy elements in the story to make it more appealing to kids i supposed. Coincidentally, the bird also showed them where to recycle those discarded nets.

Overall, i loved the book and would recommend it to anyone who loves and cares about the ocean as much as i do and who would love to learn on how they could do their part in protecting the ocean and making it a better and safer place for everyone! including the marine lives. However,some improvements and adjustments could be made on a few areas though.

Thank you, Patagonia, for the advance reading copy.

I appreciate the unique presentation. I love the amazing illustrations. The colours and everything else fits perfectly.

However, I feel it will be a bit difficult and confusing for the target audience to actually read and get the information from this book.

I appreciate the usage of two different languages which will help the young readers get familiar with these languages when they are familiar with one and wants to get familiar with the other.

All my heart for the objective of this book. Let's recycle and let's produce less trash whenever possible.

An enlightening call to action! This book would make a great addition to a unit about the impact human's have on the environment as well as their responsibility to recycle and make amends for the negative impact.

An added bonus is that the whole book is set in Chile and therefore features bilingual text. This highlights the global importance of the themes of recycling and functions as an inclusive reading experience for Spanish-speaking students.

The art style is also beautiful with swirling contrasting colors as you can see on the cover. There were some strangely portrayed pages where the marine creatures were personified and there were half human/crab characters on the page. This magical realism story device may require some explanation for younger students so that it does not skew their fiction vs non-fiction understanding. Overall, this is a great story and a versatile book for teaching.

A very pretty advert, although the moral and cause behind it all do kind of force me to not be too sniffy about getting a corporate message dressed as a book. When a sea lion disrupts the swimming larks of two siblings, they learn of the perils of ghost nets, abandoned and broken-off bits of trawler netting. But lo and behold the answer is not far away, for some people can turn the plastic they're made of into clothing – oh, and so can the publishers. Funny, that. There is a further benefit to this, in that it's bilingual Spanish and English, with the languages swapping over which takes precedence, and a layout that is clearly designed to be bilingual, and not as is quite often the case, where the second language is just overlaid as an afterthought wherever space can be found. So we have a language lesson, a clear and concise environmental message – and a bit of a whitewash, for nobody should read this and think 'job done' in cleaning and protecting the oceans. This kind of makes it sound like it's home and hosed, when it clearly isn't. But in giving an example of the future green economies and technology, this is still laudable.

The artwork is bright and fun. It is very appealing to young readers. I love that it is written in English and Spanish. It allows kids to explore a different language while reading. The story of cleaning up the ocean and recycling is great! My kids enjoyed the book and it would make a great gift for others.
Overall, a great book with a good message to kids about cleaning up and recycling. I appreciate that there is information in the back about reducing waste in the oceans.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

A beautifully colored and informative bilingual story about two siblings, Isidora and Julian, and how one day they discover a sea lion trapped in a fishing net. An excellent resource for talking to kids about recycling, reusing, and taking care of our planet.
I particularly thought this book was special not only for the bilingual aspect, but because of how the publisher chose to “walk the walk and talk the talk” by choosing materials to make this book that would save trees and water. Amazing!