RECYCLE EVERY DAY!

The bunnies at Minna’s school have been asked to create a poster about recycling. The best posters will be used as illustrations in the Community Recycling Calendar. Minna really wants to win, and her family has helpful suggestions. They recycle every day: Monday they take old clothes to the clothes bank; Tuesday they clean the yard and make compost; Wednesday they go to the recycling center. Every day they reuse, reduce, or recycle, but Minna doesn’t decide how to make her poster until the day before the contest. Winning posters for each month are announced, and just when she’s sure she hasn’t won, Minna gets her wish. Wallace’s (Pumpkin Day!, 2002, etc.) illustrations are her very recognizable cut-paper collages done here with found and recycled paper. The story is a vehicle for the Be Green message, but young readers won’t mind. Between the seven activities Minna and her family do during the week and the posters her 12 schoolmates display, each with a recycling suggestion of its own, there are plenty of ideas youngsters can act upon to be kinder to the Earth. There’s a fun recycling game (the game board is the penultimate page), a real recycling challenge for readers and their families, and, on the last page, swatches of the papers used in the illustrations with the invitation to find them in the pictures. There is more story here, but less information, than Gail Gibbons’s Recycle! (1992). However, the intended audience will enjoy the extras. An excellent introduction to this increasingly important subject. (Picture book. 5-9)