There’s something very appealing about those bright plastic ducks one can but for children. Who can forget Ernie from Sesame Street singing this classic?

So my eye was caught by a new book, [amazon_link id=”0670022195″ target=”_blank” ]Moby Duck: an accidental odyssey (The true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea)[/amazon_link] by Donovan Hohn. It turns out the toys are pretty much indestructible, so when a large cargo container full of them capsized, in 1992, they sailed to the end of the ocean and stayed there. Fifteen years later, Hohn set out on their trail, with destinations including Alaska and the North Pacific Gyre, which has become a large garbage dump in the ocean.

[amazon_image id=”0670022195″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools,[/amazon_image]

Books about the nuts and bolts of globalisation always fascinate me. I enjoyed [amazon_link id=”0470287160″ target=”_blank” ]Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy[/amazon_link] by Pietra Rivoli, and [amazon_link id=”0691136408″ target=”_blank” ]The Box[/amazon_link] (about shipping containers, by Marc Levinson – which also inspired a BBC project to follow a container).

So I’m going to have to read this one. It’s been favourably reviewed in the FT and The New York Times.