Trash

Trash
by Sharon Darrow

TRASH by

Category: Contemporary

Age Recommendation: Grades 9+

Release Date: 8/8/06

Publisher: Candlewick

Reviewed by:

Rating: 4 Stars

TRASH is a verse novel that continues the story of Boy and Sissy Lexie, first introduced in Sharon Darrow’s novel

THE

PAINTERS OF LEXIEVILLE. It’s certainly not necessary to have read that first book (I haven’t)--but I’m

planning on it

now that I’ve read this one. The best part of this book, I think, is the characters, and I’d love to read

more about them.

Sure, the story is interesting, too: Boy and Sissy are teenagers now. They’ve been shipped around to various foster

homes

in a way that makes them feel like trash, especially since their mother discarded them like it. Now they’re

living with the

town trash collectors, a placement that seems especially fit using that comparison. It’ll never be home.

Boy says that home is where their big sister Raynell is, and Sissy thinks it’s the truth. So what do they do? They run

away

and go to find her. They think she’s in Little Rock, but it turns out that she moved to St. Louis and their foster

parents didn’t

deliver the message. They don’t know how to find her, so they start saving their money, and when

they have enough, they

go to St. Louis and search her out.

In St. Louis, they have a family with Raynell, her husband, Jobe, and their baby, Kylie. They also have new friends:

Dolores

and Tyrone. The four of them run around the city at night, climbing, jumping, and painting. They take new

names with which

to sign their graffiti: Boy and Sissy, who have always wanted real names, are now Atenz and Skye.

And then something unthinkable happens. Something terrible: Boy doesn’t look where he’s jumping, and in that split

second

of not looking, things change forever. Sissy’s life will never, ever be the same.

Both the story and characters in TRASH are interesting. This is a story well worth reading.