Bailey Finch Takes a Stand

When her beloved dog Sheba is hurt at the local creek, eleven-year-old girl Bailey Finch – still grieving her recently passed mum – decides to take action to clean up the pollution damaging her local waterways. Bailey’s mum had always said that being by the creek with Bailey and her dad was as good as it gets. She had shown Bailey sap glistening on tree trunks. They had crouched together to nudge a beetle onto a leaf. They had sat on the creek’s edge with their bare feet in the water.

It’s one year since Bailey’s mum died. And her dad doesn’t seem to care much about anything. But Bailey still spends afternoons by the creek with her dog, Sheba. Until Sheba gets sick—very sick—from something she must have swallowed while swimming in the creek. And Bailey notices all the rubbish polluting the waterway.

Between visits to Sheba in the vet hospital, Bailey tries to find a way to make the creek safe for Sheba and other animals. And through her unexpected friendship with Israel, a quiet boy who knows about endangered species, Bailey Finch finds the courage to take a stand.