Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash!

by Barbara Odanaka, Will Hillenbrand (Illustrator)

Overview

THE GARBAGE TRUCKS
ARE HERE TODAY!

Smashing, mashing,
lights a-flashing,
gobblin' garbage,
GULPITY-GULP.

From castaway furniture to last night's leftovers, no job is too big or too small for this rugged team. With an upbeat, rhythmic text, Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash! follows two garbage trucks on their route. What results is a stinky, roaring, rumbling mess — and LOADS OF FUN!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780689851605
Publisher:	Margaret K. McElderry Books
Publication date:	10/10/2006
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	11.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Barbara Odanaka is a former Los Angeles Times reporter who left daily journalism to backpack around the world and write children’s books. She is the author of Construction Cat, as well as Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash and A Crazy Day at the Critter Café. Her polydactyl cat, Mittens, is much too lazy to work heavy machinery. Please visit Ms. Odanaka at BarbaraOdanaka.com.

Will Hillenbrand is the acclaimed illustrator of many popular books, including Counting Crocodiles by Judy Sierra and Kiss the Cow by Phyllis Root. He lives with his family in Terrace Park, Ohio.

Editorial Reviews

PreS-Gr 1-Rhythmic, rhyming language abounds as two piglets welcome the early-morning arrival of a pair of "Rumbling, roaring" garbage trucks. All of the offal details are here as the green behemoths gobble up everything from apple cores and dirty diapers to broken furniture. Smiling porcine workers, with "Greasy gloves-sticky boots-/stains a-plenty on their suits," feed the beasts while "Flies a-buzzin'/by the dozen" enjoy a feast at the "rolling bug buffet." After completing all of the "Crushing,/cramming,/screeching,/slamming," the vehicles thunder away, leaving the youngsters to re-create the action with their toy replicas. Done in ink and egg tempera on canvas, the vivacious two-page paintings convey the text's enthusiasm and energy. The trucks, shown from the rear and personified with mouthlike hoppers and red brakelight eyes, gleefully munch their way through an array of vividly colored refuse. The pigs are appealing, and readers can follow the antics of their dogs as they rush outside to be part of the fun. Pair this onomatopoeic offering with other tongue-tingling read-alouds, such as Kate McMullan's I Stink! (2002) and Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha's Trashy Town (1999, both HarperCollins), for a crash-bang storytime on a perennially popular topic.-Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Fans of Kate and Jim McMullan's I Stink! (2002) will welcome this look-alike, sound-alike return visit, as a pair of bright green trucks with backward-looking red eyes and huge mouths (even, in one startling scene, an oversized tongue) consume with relish a smorgasbord of broken furniture and garbage: "Rotten eggs? / Apple cores? / Pack 'em in-the engine ROARS. / Stinky diapers? / Coffee grounds? / Load it UP and smash it DOWN." It's all served up by a crew of cheerful pigs in overalls as an audience of dogs (plus a pair of exuberant piglets in an upstairs room, awakened by the din) looks on. Coloring the urban backdrops purple for this predawn banquet, Hillenbrand effectively captures the ickiness of all the soiled or overripe "entr‚es," but leaves the sidewalks and battered cans neat and litter free as the trucks careen off to their next stop. Young audiences will be happy to crash and bash right along with these familiar mechanical Wild Things. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews