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TrashAndy Mulligan
Trash
by Andy Mulligan
Three boys who pick over a rubbish dump find a wallet, and the police want it back badly enough to come looking for them.
A story about children, adventurous and thoughtful in tone. We would put it with children of 11–13, and at a reading age of about 11 for reading alone.
Worth knowing before you buy
- Cruel adults
- Poverty and hardship
- Frightening scenes
None of this makes it a bad book — often the opposite. It is here so you can decide whether it is right for your child now or in a year or two.
Our take on this book
Raphael, Gardo and Rat are 'dumpsite boys' who make their living picking through a mountain of rubbish in a poor country — until they find something in the trash that powerful, dangerous people are desperate to recover, and the three boys are plunged into a race for their lives and for the truth. Andy Mulligan writes a gripping, fast-paced thriller with a fierce moral heart, exposing poverty, corruption and injustice through the eyes of three brave, resourceful children. The setting is tough and there is real peril — this is a story about desperate lives and genuinely dangerous adults — so it suits an older, more robust reader of eleven upward. For that reader it is a page-turning, eye-opening novel that combines edge-of-the-seat excitement with a powerful conscience, and one that leaves children thinking hard about the world's inequalities. A thriller with real substance, and a compelling read for a child ready for weightier themes.
If they like this, try these
Chosen by matching age, reading age, tone and subject — not by what is selling.
GhostJason Reynolds
The Goldfish BoyLisa Thompson
The London Eye MysterySiobhan Dowd
Boy, EverywhereA. M. Dassu
Or let them write their own.
Nothing gets a child reading like a story they invented themselves. Your child plans the characters and the plot, and we write, illustrate and print it as a real book with their name on the cover as the author.
Find another book
Tell us the age, the reading age and what they like, and we will suggest a handful.