Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsTrash by Andy Mulligan
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2011
The thriller Trash, by Andy Mulligan, is an exciting adventure, set in a developing country much different than our own. Trash brings you into a world that most people will never have the misfortune to see: a huge garbage dump, whose stench and filth is really almost unimaginable to folks like us, whose trash is tidily placed in black plastic bags and conveniently handled for us by Sanitation workers. Most of us never see what happens after these workers pick up our trash; where it really ends up and in fact, we probably don't really want to know. This story is about the place where trash does ends up, in a third world country, and what life is like in this place for three young garbage pickers... until the day something incredible happens that changes all this and gives them hope for the future.
Trash is very atmospheric, setting the scene with images of miles and miles of raw rotting garbage, human waste, and the overwhelming stench. The descriptions were so good I could practically taste the horrible stench myself.
Raphael says, "It's a place they call Behala, and it's Rubbish Town. Three years ago it was Smoky Mountain, but Smoky Mountain got so bad, they closed it up and shifted us along the road. The piles stack up - I mean Himalayas: you can climb forever and many people do: up and down into the valleys. The mountains go right from the docks to the marshes, one whole long world of steaming trash. I am one of the Rubbish Boys, picking through the stuff this city throws away."
Rat, Raphael and Gardo are brave, intelligent and fierce street kids who live at Behala. They take turns narrating the story from each of their perspectives. You may be surprised by their self-reliance, kindness and abilities to figure out clues and information. Trash follows the story of these three young kids who live in the garbage dump, looking for anything they can salvage from the waste to sell for pennies to live day by day with little hope for the future.
Or is there hope.....? One day, one of the boys, Raphael finds a mysterious small cloth bag containing a wallet and some other things in among the mountains of trash. This find is destined to change his life and those of his two friends forever. After finding the bag, the boys are on the run, as they soon find out that the police will do anything to get this bag and its contents.
Read Trash to find out what will happen in this crazy mad chase of a novel. Find out why the police want this bag more than anything and what happens to the three young boys because they get involved using their wit and courage to solve a very dangerous mystery that has huge implications to them and many other people. I highly recommend this book if you love books that make you really care about the characters and what happens to them. If you love a thrilling page turner that you will not be able to put down, all the way to a most satisfying conclusion, you will definitely enjoy this book!
Background information for the Librarian:
Trash brings up many important and thought-provoking questions for further discussion, such as: Why are people living this way? Or, Is there any way out for them?
The author Andy Mulligan has lived in Manila Philippines for four years and teaches at an international school there. In an interview about Trash, he wrote:
"All teachers at my school make a visit there (to the dump) and you are confronted with these biblical images," recalls Mulligan. "It's like one of the circles of hell. You are watching seven-year-olds crawling through the rubbish right next to 70-year-olds - and you have in that vision the absolute solid image of what that seven-year-old will become. You just think this can't really be true and you are overwhelmed by your own impotence - there is not a thing I can do about it."
Pauli, M. (2010) Andy Mulligan Talks Trash. Web. Accessed on 7/14/2011. [...]
Mulligan, A. (2011) Trash. Andy Mulligan's Website. Web. Accessed on 7/14/2011. [...]
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