Kate WheelerRezensionen

Gr 3–6—Science fair partners Charlie and Oliver accidentally activate a time machine that whisks them away to
different ages and places to learn about trash and recycling. A cute, smart, and incredibly informative book about
recycling, upcycling, composting, and other STEAM topics.

A note-taker and a doodler are paired up for a science project that seems them travel through time, gathering information on how humanity has dealt with the problem of trash and learned how to recycle. A few examples are from the distant past, but most are more recent. When the problem of plastic pollution seems too big to face, solutions and innovations are presented - along with the message that scientists and artists are both needed to come up with more ideas. Fun and informative!

I had a hard time finishing this book which I found disjointed and less than satisfying. About all I liked were the passages dealing with life with the poor of Peru.½

International in nature, these ten short stories by writer Kate Wheeler are fantastical, absorbing, and bittersweet. Her characters are insecure, troubled and world-weary. Shaken by life's tragedies, they are each on journeys to a different place.
There is the American who becomes a nun in Burma only to find the chasm between her culture and the monastery too difficult to bridge. The woman in Buenos Aires who lives a life so mundane, she takes French lessons and conjures up a secret life. Wheeler's characters are each unique; priceless individual gems which shine in their own right.
Traveling the globe, they each seek home, their own sense of place. Each is a treasure, meant to be savored. Recommended for short story fans.
(Read June 2003)

Some of the stories in this collection are really stellar and thought-provoking, but some are rather lackluster. The uneven texture isn't so bad that I'd recommend you away from it, but approach it with an eye to finding what you like. Not everything is going to grab you.