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Book Summary:
The town of Islip has too much trash and no place to put it. Business man Gino Stroffolino sees an opportunity to profit from their predicament and comes up with a scheme to transport Islip’s garbage someplace else. To that end, he hires Cap’m Duffy St. Pierre to ferry the garbage barge down to North Carolina, where he has made arrangements with is business associate, Joey LaMotta to dispose of it. Yet, when Cap’m Duffy arrives in Morehead City, North Carolina, he finds himself in a wee bit of a pickle; the residents there don’t want Islip’s garbage dumped in their backyard. Cap’m Duffy calls up his boss, Stroffolino, he directs Duffy to head to New Orleans instead, and thus begins Cap’m Duffy’s sad, unsuccessful journey to dispose of Islip’s garbage. Cap’m Duffy makes stops in Mexico, Belize, Texas, and Florida before finally returning home to New York. Cap’m Duffy had quit in exasperation, and at this point, he just wants to deposit his cargo and go home. Finally, a judge orders Brooklyn to take the garbage, incinerate it, and then, give it back to the people of Islip. What’s left is buried in the Islip’s landfill, and Cap’m Duffy sails off home to New Orleans on his boat, The Break of Dawn.
APA Reference:
Winter, J. (2010). Here Comes The Garbage Barge! New York, NY: Schwartz & Wade Books.
Impressions:
Not only does this book have a great message, its story is well-told and creatively illustrated. Winter skillfully takes a potentially boring old news story and makes it seem fresh—no pun intended! Winter accomplishes this largely by making younger readers care about the story’s main protagonist, the hapless Cap’m Duffy, the captain of the nefarious garbage bard, a man who is just doing his job and suffers for it. The gravity of the problem is personalized through this character, as we watch Cap’m Duffy increasingly sink into despair, especially after he is denied a port in his hometown, New Orleans. All poor Cap’m Duffy wants to do is finish his job and go home, but he can’t. Cap’m Duffy’s dilemma echoes the more nuanced problem: what do we do with trash when it has nowhere to go? Clearly, we need to cut back or do something to minimize our waste. How do we do that?
The book raises these pressing concerns in a way that is still fun, without being too didactic, with a few small exceptions. At the end of the book, when the town is forced to take back the incinerated garbage, the narrator proclaims, “Justice!” I’m not 100% that all readers will agree with Winter on this. Technically, the citizens of Islip didn’t have to take it all back; the amount was reduced by the incinerator. I also think some younger readers might get the wrong idea that we can deal with garbage just by burning it, which is actually bad for the environment. I also feel like the phrase “Justice!” implies judgment, which might make it harder for readers to see themselves in the citizens of Islip. Did the citizens of Islip learn their lesson or not? This is a question Winters doesn’t fully answer in the book. Another obvious “teaching” moment also comes at the very beginning of the book, when the narrator asks, “Did you know that the average American makes about four pounds of garbage every day?” While this statistic is informative, it feels out of place in the story. It sounds like something that would open up a persuasive research paper instead of a page out of a children’s storybook.
Those quibbles aside, the book is well-written. Most notable is Winter’s clever use of dialect, especially in dialogue. Cap’m Duffy’s character boasts a New Orleans twang, while the instructions of the oily businessman Mr. Stroffolino are delivered in true New York wise-guy style. Every place Cap’m Duffy visits, we get a dose of local flavor, both in the form of accents and with the accompanying illustrations. For example, the encounter with armed forces in Belize is accompanied by the language, as well as illustrations of palm trees, a Toucan, and a banana.
As historical fiction, the book does take some minor liberties (e.g. the character of businessman Stroffolino represents all the corporate business interests involved in the real incident), but it does faithfully depict the real events, including the somewhat less than perfect ending, whereby the garbage is incinerated. Cap’m Duffy goes home, but the good people of Islip, and indeed the world, still continues to produce garbage. It is a problem that isn’t really solved, the realism of which drives the point home, even to young readers.
One of my favorite aspects of the book was how its design supports the theme. The illustrations themselves are partially created by repurposing real garbage. Thus, the creation of the book itself actually underscores and demonstrates the value of recycling. I also loved how words were creatively arranged on the page. When characters are angry or yell, the text is typically larger and often appears off-kilter. For example, when the police boat rushes out from New Orleans to interdict its entry into port, the words of the officer seem to spray, or emanate from the bull-horn. The illustrations themselves often include small, yet telling details, such as the transformation of Cap’m Duffy’s shirt over time. He begins the book with a yellow shirt, plastered with a smiley-face. When he arrives in New Orleans, the shirt remains yellow, but now it sports a fleur di lis. After Cap’m Duffy decides to quit, his shirt changes to green, with a Mr. Yuck face on it. Other small details also made me smile, including the plate of the Statue of Liberty covering her mouth when the barge enters the harbor, Cap’m Duffy’s use of a gas mask and later a clothes-pin to cope with the stench, and, finally, the angry senior citizens of Florida, whose anger seems incongruous when juxtaposed with their rubber ducky life preservers.
Professional Review:
A stinky story never seemed so sweet. Winter tackles the true-life tale of the 1987 Garbage Barge fiasco in this entirely amusing mix of fact and fiction. When the city of Islip on Long Island ends up with too much garbage, some businessmen (merged into a single character here named Gino Stroffolino) decide the best solution is to ship it to a distant Southern contact. Trouble arises when the barge and stalwart Cap'm Duffy St. Pierre find themselves turned away at every port. From North Carolina to Mexico, from New Orleans to Belize, nobody wants the garbage--all 3,168 tons of it. The author has fun with this story, and his jovial tall-tale tone is well complemented by the eye-popping clay models provided by Red Nose Studio. The garbage in this book doesn't just stink--it oozes and melts in the hot summer sun. A fantastic combination of text and image, this is sure to give the barge and story the infamy they deserve for a generation far too young to recall either the actual incident or the bad old days before we all recycled. (Picture book. 4-8)
[Review of the book Here comes the garbage barge! by J.Winter]. (2010). Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jonah-winter/here-comes-the-garbage-barge/
Library Uses:
I think the pro-recycling message makes this book a perfect fit for Earth Day programming, but it could also occur at any point in the year to raise awareness for recycling. A story time could be held. Afterwards, students could create their own recycling advertisements using actual recycled items from their own homes, or those provided by the librarian/teacher. This would mimic the re-purposing of trash as shown in the book’s clever illustrations. Another possibility might be to plan a physical or virtual field trip to a local waste facility or landfill, so students could understand how they work and could see for themselves why they need to try to limit what they throw away. Yet another activity might involve a problem-solving project, where students could work in small groups to research and brainstorm ways to reduce the amount of garbage in their own households. Finally, if the story time occurred in a school and was coupled with a lesson plan, students could actually count or measure the number of items or bags of trash their family throws away and graph it over time. This could be an innovative way to connect to the mathematics or science curriculum.
The town of Islip has too much trash and no place to put it. Business man Gino Stroffolino sees an opportunity to profit from their predicament and comes up with a scheme to transport Islip’s garbage someplace else. To that end, he hires Cap’m Duffy St. Pierre to ferry the garbage barge down to North Carolina, where he has made arrangements with is business associate, Joey LaMotta to dispose of it. Yet, when Cap’m Duffy arrives in Morehead City, North Carolina, he finds himself in a wee bit of a pickle; the residents there don’t want Islip’s garbage dumped in their backyard. Cap’m Duffy calls up his boss, Stroffolino, he directs Duffy to head to New Orleans instead, and thus begins Cap’m Duffy’s sad, unsuccessful journey to dispose of Islip’s garbage. Cap’m Duffy makes stops in Mexico, Belize, Texas, and Florida before finally returning home to New York. Cap’m Duffy had quit in exasperation, and at this point, he just wants to deposit his cargo and go home. Finally, a judge orders Brooklyn to take the garbage, incinerate it, and then, give it back to the people of Islip. What’s left is buried in the Islip’s landfill, and Cap’m Duffy sails off home to New Orleans on his boat, The Break of Dawn.
APA Reference:
Winter, J. (2010). Here Comes The Garbage Barge! New York, NY: Schwartz & Wade Books.
Impressions:
Not only does this book have a great message, its story is well-told and creatively illustrated. Winter skillfully takes a potentially boring old news story and makes it seem fresh—no pun intended! Winter accomplishes this largely by making younger readers care about the story’s main protagonist, the hapless Cap’m Duffy, the captain of the nefarious garbage bard, a man who is just doing his job and suffers for it. The gravity of the problem is personalized through this character, as we watch Cap’m Duffy increasingly sink into despair, especially after he is denied a port in his hometown, New Orleans. All poor Cap’m Duffy wants to do is finish his job and go home, but he can’t. Cap’m Duffy’s dilemma echoes the more nuanced problem: what do we do with trash when it has nowhere to go? Clearly, we need to cut back or do something to minimize our waste. How do we do that?
The book raises these pressing concerns in a way that is still fun, without being too didactic, with a few small exceptions. At the end of the book, when the town is forced to take back the incinerated garbage, the narrator proclaims, “Justice!” I’m not 100% that all readers will agree with Winter on this. Technically, the citizens of Islip didn’t have to take it all back; the amount was reduced by the incinerator. I also think some younger readers might get the wrong idea that we can deal with garbage just by burning it, which is actually bad for the environment. I also feel like the phrase “Justice!” implies judgment, which might make it harder for readers to see themselves in the citizens of Islip. Did the citizens of Islip learn their lesson or not? This is a question Winters doesn’t fully answer in the book. Another obvious “teaching” moment also comes at the very beginning of the book, when the narrator asks, “Did you know that the average American makes about four pounds of garbage every day?” While this statistic is informative, it feels out of place in the story. It sounds like something that would open up a persuasive research paper instead of a page out of a children’s storybook.
Those quibbles aside, the book is well-written. Most notable is Winter’s clever use of dialect, especially in dialogue. Cap’m Duffy’s character boasts a New Orleans twang, while the instructions of the oily businessman Mr. Stroffolino are delivered in true New York wise-guy style. Every place Cap’m Duffy visits, we get a dose of local flavor, both in the form of accents and with the accompanying illustrations. For example, the encounter with armed forces in Belize is accompanied by the language, as well as illustrations of palm trees, a Toucan, and a banana.
As historical fiction, the book does take some minor liberties (e.g. the character of businessman Stroffolino represents all the corporate business interests involved in the real incident), but it does faithfully depict the real events, including the somewhat less than perfect ending, whereby the garbage is incinerated. Cap’m Duffy goes home, but the good people of Islip, and indeed the world, still continues to produce garbage. It is a problem that isn’t really solved, the realism of which drives the point home, even to young readers.
One of my favorite aspects of the book was how its design supports the theme. The illustrations themselves are partially created by repurposing real garbage. Thus, the creation of the book itself actually underscores and demonstrates the value of recycling. I also loved how words were creatively arranged on the page. When characters are angry or yell, the text is typically larger and often appears off-kilter. For example, when the police boat rushes out from New Orleans to interdict its entry into port, the words of the officer seem to spray, or emanate from the bull-horn. The illustrations themselves often include small, yet telling details, such as the transformation of Cap’m Duffy’s shirt over time. He begins the book with a yellow shirt, plastered with a smiley-face. When he arrives in New Orleans, the shirt remains yellow, but now it sports a fleur di lis. After Cap’m Duffy decides to quit, his shirt changes to green, with a Mr. Yuck face on it. Other small details also made me smile, including the plate of the Statue of Liberty covering her mouth when the barge enters the harbor, Cap’m Duffy’s use of a gas mask and later a clothes-pin to cope with the stench, and, finally, the angry senior citizens of Florida, whose anger seems incongruous when juxtaposed with their rubber ducky life preservers.
Professional Review:
A stinky story never seemed so sweet. Winter tackles the true-life tale of the 1987 Garbage Barge fiasco in this entirely amusing mix of fact and fiction. When the city of Islip on Long Island ends up with too much garbage, some businessmen (merged into a single character here named Gino Stroffolino) decide the best solution is to ship it to a distant Southern contact. Trouble arises when the barge and stalwart Cap'm Duffy St. Pierre find themselves turned away at every port. From North Carolina to Mexico, from New Orleans to Belize, nobody wants the garbage--all 3,168 tons of it. The author has fun with this story, and his jovial tall-tale tone is well complemented by the eye-popping clay models provided by Red Nose Studio. The garbage in this book doesn't just stink--it oozes and melts in the hot summer sun. A fantastic combination of text and image, this is sure to give the barge and story the infamy they deserve for a generation far too young to recall either the actual incident or the bad old days before we all recycled. (Picture book. 4-8)
[Review of the book Here comes the garbage barge! by J.Winter]. (2010). Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jonah-winter/here-comes-the-garbage-barge/
Library Uses:
I think the pro-recycling message makes this book a perfect fit for Earth Day programming, but it could also occur at any point in the year to raise awareness for recycling. A story time could be held. Afterwards, students could create their own recycling advertisements using actual recycled items from their own homes, or those provided by the librarian/teacher. This would mimic the re-purposing of trash as shown in the book’s clever illustrations. Another possibility might be to plan a physical or virtual field trip to a local waste facility or landfill, so students could understand how they work and could see for themselves why they need to try to limit what they throw away. Yet another activity might involve a problem-solving project, where students could work in small groups to research and brainstorm ways to reduce the amount of garbage in their own households. Finally, if the story time occurred in a school and was coupled with a lesson plan, students could actually count or measure the number of items or bags of trash their family throws away and graph it over time. This could be an innovative way to connect to the mathematics or science curriculum.