Welly and the Jelly

This blog post was written by Faye Riebe, a 2025 Marine Plastics Ambassador.

“Welly and the Jelly” is a children’s book for young elementary-aged children, meant to begin teaching them about marine plastics and inspire them to take action. The book follows a whale, Welly, who is sad because the plastic bag he finds floating in the ocean will not play with him. He thinks it is a jellyfish, and when a real jellyfish comes along, Nelly, she explains that it is a plastic bag, not a jellyfish. The two return the bag back to the shore, where a young child picks it up and uses it to collect other litter on the beach. Nelly and Welly then swim off as friends.

I wanted to bring to light the issue of marine plastics, while keeping the book happy and manageable for young children to understand. With the young child using the bag to clean up litter at the end, I hope to inspire the young readers of the book to pick up trash they see in nature as well. Inspiring and educating the younger generations can lead to a more environmentally-conscience future.

I wrote the story, and my friend, Olivia White, illustrated the story using water colors. The book has since been published as a Youtube video reading, which I intend to send to elementary school teachers in my area.

The book was recently published as a Youtube video, and I hope to publish it as an online PDF, and maybe a physical book, in the future. I would also like to develop a lesson plan that aligns with the book in the future.

Welly and the Jelly has been published as a Youtube video for four days at the time of writing this, and in that time span has received 18 views. I hope to increase the viewage of the book by sending it to elementary school teachers to show to their classrooms.

I read the story, without illustrations, to ~20 summer campers aged 7-9 this summer, who gave positive feedback on the story, and were highly engaged with it.

I enjoyed creating the children’s book, and trying to find fun and simple ways for young children to become engaged in fighting against marine plastics. A main challenge was producing the book in a short time frame. While production of the book was completed and went well, it was difficult to publicize the book to other people, and extend it to teachers, in the time frame. Looking back, I think I would have started the publicity process before the book was even finished. Overall, being a Marine Plastics Ambassador was an amazing experience, and I learned so many interesting new ways to lessen my plastic use, and inspiring others to lessen theirs as well.

Watch the reading here: https://youtu.be/UosTWJX4uww