Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away
by Andrew Larsen; foreword by Nelson Molina; illus. by Oriol Vidal
Primary    Sourcebooks Explore    40 pp.
9/24    9781728283517    $18.99

Throughout his childhood in East Harlem, Molina’s mother instilled in him the principle that every object had value: loose scraps of wood could be fashioned into a birdhouse; a broken toy truck could be repaired and given to a grateful younger sibling. Molina carried these upcycling habits into his career as a sanitation worker. “Is there something more than trash in here?” he would wonder upon encountering an interestingly shaped garbage bag. “Is there something someone might love?” He repaired and displayed these gifts from the garbage around his sanitation garage until the collection grew so large (estimated at over forty-five thousand items) that Molina opened the collection to the public through his Treasures in the Trash Museum. The optimistic tone of Larsen’s text matches the positivity of Molina’s ideology, as do Vidal’s warm, sun-soaked digital illustrations of New York City neighborhoods, especially the alleys and curbs where treasures from the trash are found—a reminder that we can discover beauty, joy, and worth from the materials right in front of us. Back matter includes photos of Molina with his treasures and suggestions for how to mirror his sustainable habits by thinking of new uses for old objects.

From the ">November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.