Teen Fiction - Choices & Transitions, Teen Fiction - Family & Relationships, Teen Fiction - Poetry

Trash

Name: Trash
Author: Sharon Darrow
ISBN: 9780763626242

by Sharon Darrow

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Overview

Two teen siblings run from foster life — and find new expression as graffiti artists — in a stark but hopeful poetic novel.

For sixteen-year-old Sissy and her brother Boy, trash is a reminder of one too many sorry foster placements they've endured, a way of life they can't wait to escape. Now on the run in search of their big sister Raynell, ironically they are forced to rely on their trash-picking skills for sustenance and shelter. Reunited at last with Raynell in St. Louis, Boy and Sissy shed their old identities, reinvent themselves as graffiti artists, and splash their new names on city bridges and walls. But one night's expedition goes horribly wrong, and Sissy looks again to trash, this time as the beginning of something artful and beautiful.

Synopsis

Two teen siblings run from foster life — and find new expression as graffiti artists — in a stark but hopeful poetic novel.

Publishers Weekly

Darrow articulates, in first-person verse, 16-year-old Sissy's searing coming-of-age story. Sissy and 14-year-old Boy, sixth and seventh offspring of a mom too dissolute to name them, endure successive foster homes. Sissy's fondest recollections involve stable intervals with her loving older sister Raynell and her husband, Jobe (one of the narrators of Darrow's The Painters of Lexieville). But an act of vandalism lands the two back in the welfare system. Their latest home is with a strict, religious couple hauling rural trash, "Aunt" Lannie and volatile "Uncle Daddy" ("since you/ don't got one of your own"), who requires the children to help with the reeking collections. Uncle Daddy beats Boy for an imagined theft, and the two soon flee to Raynell, who "makes even the worst old place/ seem like a home filled with flowers" and settle into cramped St. Louis quarters. Sissy and Boy, innate artists, head out on night rambles and spray their new identities-graffiti-style-ever higher. One night, a rooftop misstep leads to Boy's death. The author inextricably links Sissy's journey to come to peace with his death with her drive as an artist (her medium, scavenged trash). Amid gritty free verse, Darrow interweaves beautifully crafted forms such as the villanelle, sestina and pantoum, whose intricate patterns suit Sissy's mournful voice. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Sharon Darrow

Sharon Darrow is the author of THE PAINTERS OF LEXIEVILLE and THROUGH THE TEMPESTS DARK AND WILD: A STORY OF MARY SHELLEY, CREATOR OF FRANKENSTEIN, illustrated by Angela Barrett. Sharon Darrow lives in Plainfield, Vermont.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

KLIATT

Trash is a narrative in poems, a novel in poetry format. Darrow is on the faculty of the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College, and her skill as a writer, as a poet, is obvious. Trash tells the story of two foster children, brother and sister--with the motif of trash occurring again and again throughout the narrative. Foster children often feel they have been thrown away, treated as trash by the system. Boy and Sissy do have an older sister, Raynell, who has a small family of her own, and often can't take care of her siblings; then they end up back in foster care. One family they stay with are trash collectors, which is how the children get the idea they too are trash. As they get older, as teenagers, they run away to St. Louis to re-connect with Raynell. There they start roaming the streets drawing graffiti, becoming "taggers," which is exciting, dangerous, and an outlet for their artistic talents. The excitement leads to death for one and prison for the other--however, for Sissy, who gets her GED in prison, the end of the story tells of her going to art school in Chicago, using, of all things, trash to create beautiful art. Excellent poetry, poignant story. KLIATT Codes: JSA--Recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2006, Candlewick Press, 148p. 2006., $16.99.. Ages 12 to adult.
—Claire Rosser

Children's Literature - Kelly Grebinoski

Their birth names are Boy and Sissy. The kids who tease them at school say their mother used up every name, knew every man, and was lazy. They ask their mother why she named them Boy and Sissy and she says, "Would you rather be Number Six and Number Seven?" Their mother gives them up to welfare many times. They are shipped around to different unstable families and to their big sister Raynell and her husband Jobe. Hard times strike Jobe's family, too, and they must move again. They end up sleeping at the neighbor's house and find themselves used to being poor. Boy gets into trouble, quits doing homework, and gets expelled from school. Then, welfare steps in and places them with a retired teacher named Mrs. Clay. But Mrs. Clay has a stroke. Boy and Sissy then go to a trailer with Sam and an old Cherokee guy. After several foster homes, they end up with the Fowler family, where they have to collect trash. Sissy goes through a troubled time and they end up fleeing the Fowlers. On the run, they learn a lot about life and life's lessons. They even come to care a little about trash. The novel is written from sixteen-year-old Sissy's point of view. It flows a bit like trash in the wind: unyielding and sporadic. In free-form poetry style, the book revolves around themes of family, loss, abuse, depression, truth, reality, and relationships. It is a real story that will make every reader feel something.

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up-Darrow began this tale of poverty in rural Arkansas in The Painters of Lexieville (Candlewick, 2003). Abandoned by their mother, Sissy Lexie, 16, and her younger brother, Boy, are looking for a lot more beauty than they are finding. They lived with their older sister, Raynell, until her husband lost his job; endured several foster homes; and are currently residing with the Fowlers, who force the teens to collect trash for their business. Although unhappy, the siblings find comfort in being together. When Boy gives Sissy a specially designed tattoo, their enraged foster parents beat them and they run away to St. Louis to find Raynell, who can now care for them. Settled into high school, they become "art bandits," roaming rooftops at night to spray their self-chosen "tags"-Skye and Atenz. When tragedy strikes, Sissy spirals downward into depression and self-destruction. Finally reconnecting with her belief in the importance of art in day-to-day life, she revives an old dream of attending art school and begins to face her grief. Sissy's poignant first-person narrative blends staccato verses with free-flowing prose. Readers will appreciate the characters' search for identity and efforts to find beauty in places not obvious. Suggest this title to readers who enjoyed Kathe Koja's The Blue Mirror (Farrar) or Martine Leavitt's Heck Superhero (Front St, both 2004), novels that also depict hope through art and self-expression on gritty urban streets.-Kelly Czarnecki, Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg, NC Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

When their mother abandons Sissy (16) and her younger brother, Boy, their older sister, Raynell, and her husband, Jobe, care for them. But when Jobe loses his job, the kids must find another place. They live with a series of odd but often caring people, ending up with the Fowlers, who run a trash collection service. Sissy and Boy smell bad and are ostracized by the other kids in school. Eventually, they are abused by the Fowlers. They contact Raynell, who now lives in St. Louis, and the two hitchhike their way to her. Finally, the siblings feel at home and proceed to reinvent themselves. They meet up with "taggers," kids who graffiti their names with spray paint throughout the urban landscape. They rename themselves and calculate their risk as they go out at night to emblazon public spaces with their new artistically rendered identities. Their comfort doesn't last long when tragedy strikes, and Sissy is on her own again. Told as a narrative in poems and set mostly in the south, the story provides a window into the challenges and dreams of homeless or near homeless teens. The language, though rich, evocative and rhythmic, is bleak, with only glimpses of salvation and light. (Fiction. YA)