Trash by Andy Mulligan

In the near future, three boys live in a Third World country and make their living picking through the local dumpsite. That's what all the kids do - pick through trash. Usually, they don't find anything of much use but one day, Raphael finds something special. Something the police and government officials want to find desperately. Something that they might kill for. Raphael and his friends, Gardo and Rat, have to get to the bottom of why this find is so important to so many people and then decide what they should do with it? Turn it in for a reward? Or keep it for themselves?


I remember ordering this title because it had such good reviews but the topic (and, let's be real here, the cover art) did not appeal to me. The only reason I picked it up was because of the rave reviews during School Library Journal's Battle of the Books (it beat one of my favorites in the first round...). A quick and straight forward read, this book is a mystery about political corruption. While reading it, I was reminded of the movie City of God - mostly because it's about kids living in poverty in Brazil but also because that movie was something I wasn't excited about watching before I started it, but was very happy I did afterwards. I think if you can talk teens into reading it (tell them to overlook the cover) they should enjoy it.