Author: Andy Mulligan
ISBN: 978-0-385-75214-5

Click Here To Purchase Trash

This book was truly a surprise. From the title, to the description on the inside cover; I was a little hesitant about diving right into this story. But I am extremely pleased that I did. This author has given YA fiction a whole new look with this breathtakingly real adventure that will, literally, make you extremely happy with your own lot in life.

We begin in a world that I never knew existed (not to make myself sound like I’ve lived in Beverly Hills all my life, or anything), but I was amazed that there are some families who have to live in such complete poverty that their children, as a job, go out everyday and claw their way through trash. Based on a real story about a school in the Philippines that is actually situated on a landfill, we are first introduced to Raphael and his friends. They are routing through every piece of garbage there is, looking for plastic, cardboard, paper – anything that’s not excrement that they can sell to provide for their family. Unfortunately, most everything in the landfill is of the excrement variety.

One day, Raphael is combing through the trash and comes across a bag buried in the mounds of mounds of garbage that makes up his home city of Behala. Gardo is his partner, and they can’t believe their luck when they open this small leather bag covered in coffee grounds and find a wallet inside with actual money, a map, and a locker key. Talk about the luckiest day of their whole lives, knowing that their families will be able to eat that night.

Unfortunately, their luck turns into a nightmare when, the next day, a ton of police show up and start questioning al the boys about this leather bag. They want it back immediately and tell the boys that not only will there be a reward, but it is evidence in a horrific crime. Raphael and his friends choose not to believe them. Seeing as that the authority figures are always lying to the boys, they know that if they give up their prize that there will be no reward and they’ll be stuck back in the excrement for all time.

When they are finally able to sneak away, they go to the lockers and find a letter inside addressed to a prisoner at the local penitentiary. There’s also a line of numbers that they can’t figure out, so they find a way to get into the prison and decode these encryptions that will perhaps lead them to a fortune and save their families from ever being hungry again.

Every aspect of this book is so well-written and well-researched that the reader feels every ounce of pain, fear, and excitement that Raphael and his friends feel. There are parts of this story that are sincerely hard to put on paper and I, for one, commend this author for the brilliant work he’s created.

Click Here To Purchase Trash