Sharon Darrow

Personal Response: I give this book a resounding and sobering "wow!". The lives these children endure is treacherous and yet beauty is found among the trash. The author artistically portrays the story in verse. Readers have to pay close attention to hold the meaning based both on the words and design of the words and space.

Curricular Connections: This book can help students connect to the marginalized culture of the poor, particularly relating to children and how they cope. It could also lend itself to identity studies. The poetic format makes a good genre study.… (mehr)

Trash should appeal to the teenage rebellion and angst demographic. Yet there is a deeper, most realistic undertone to the story that should appeal to everyone: the power of love and those, specifically children, who yearn for it.

The story is about a brother and sister, Boy and Sissy, who are moved from foster home to foster home and are treated like trash. They endure many hardships until they runaway and rebel. Boy becomes reckless, and when he does, Sissy's life will never be the same.

The double-meaning of the title (the children are treated like trash and they live among trash), combined with the full-circle mentality of the book (Sissy uses trash to get into college after being treated like it and after living in it during her childhood) make Trash an excellent read. What makes it even better is the underlying message of love that, like Les Miserables, will clutch at your heart.… (mehr)

Susan says: Darrow has created a blank verse novel about two siblings who are treated like trash for much of their lives, and how the sister grows to rise above this. Their mother has abandoned them and they have lived in various foster care settings, some good and some bad. Finally they run away to live with their sister and her family in St. Louis. There the siblings’ love for art takes a graffiti turn, and they become involved with tagging. Sissy and Boy always describe the beauty of tagging, which is an interesting take on this. But then Boy is killed while tagging, and Sissy has to create a life without her beloved brother. This book is sad and painful, but there is ultimately redemption too. A quick read that will appeal especially to kids who like urban settings.… (mehr)