Sending Nina Around the World

By Safina Center Junior Fellow Katlyn Taylor

Nina Del Mar and the Great Whale Rescue over the waters of Monterey Bay. ©Katlyn Taylor.

In November 2021, I visited the office of the Safina Center. While there, I noticed a large stack of books and asked Mayra about them. She said they’re a kid’s story Carl had written about a girl who saves a whale in Monterey Bay. She also told me that they were having a hard time distributing them. I had just accepted a job in Monterey Bay for the following summer. I worked there in the past and felt connected to the community. So, I offered to distribute the books. I was driving west from Massachusetts and agreed to take all the unopened boxes with me.

Nina Del Mar and the Great Whale Rescue rode with my dad and me for 8 days as we crossed the country. It was a little comical to see how low the truck rode with the additional weight of 468 books.

Katlyn with her truck that carried the books across the country. ©Katlyn Taylor.

When we arrived in Oregon, I gave books to the kids in our neighborhood and my young cousins. I took a few with me to Maui and gave them to friends and coworkers.

Katlyn and Emilie outside Emilie’s classroom at Gavilan View. ©Katlyn Taylor.

I got to Monterey in the spring and delivered about 250 books to Gavilan View Middle School. My friend is a science teacher there who gave them to about 200 students. She also made a set for her classroom so students can read them at school anytime. The school sits less than 10 miles from the shores where Nina’s story takes place. Many of the students can see a similarity to themselves in Nina’s identity. Over 88% of the school’s population identifies as Latinx and they’re close to Nina’s age.

The rest of the books I took to work. We had families visiting us for whale watching in Moss Landing, CA from all over the world throughout the summer. At the end of each trip, I would offer the kids on board a book. Nina has now traveled far and wide in their suitcases.

You could tell which kids on board love reading, because they would instantly open it and start reading the book before we even got back to the harbor. It was very sweet to see kids curled up reading somewhere on the bow of the boat.

Passengers on the High Spirits, a few children with Nina books. ©Katlyn Taylor.

Towards the end of my season, I donated some of the books to the local libraries in Monterey County. Kids that live on the shores of Monterey Bay can read the book for free at their local library for years to come.

In the fall I offered some of the books to Katherina Audley at the Whales of Guerrero project. I gave her a dozen books to take for the kids in the town where she works. Even though it’s written in English, I thought it would be nice to send some to Mexico since the whales in their waters in the winter are the same whales from the story.

Over the course of 2022, over 450 copies of Nina Del Mar and the Great Whale Rescue went around the world.

Nina books headed to the Seaside Library. ©Katlyn Taylor.