Team Trash
A Time Traveler's Guide to Sustainability
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
When a science project goes awry, two student activists travel through time to learn how to protect our Earth from plastic pollution in modern times.
Studious environmentalist Charlie is stuck with a science fair partner who seems like her complete opposite: Charlie wants to save the planet, and all Oliver wants is to doodle in his notebook. But when a mechanical mishap sends the two traveling back through time, they’ll have to work as a team to return to the present day.
In order for the time machine to send them back, the unlikely duo must gather data on recycling throughout the ages - from sustainable marketplaces in Edo Japan to garbage-gobbling pigs in 19th-century NYC. Yet the closer the team gets to the present day, the more that plastic presents a problem: they’re running out of time.
Harnessing their frustration over the daunting ecological future they’ve inherited, Charlie and Oliver discover the ways in which they can use their sustainability knowledge to return home and build a better earth.
In this sweeping educational adventure that transports readers across continents and centuries, Washington Post contributor Katie Wheeler invites readers into the history of recycling and how students can reduce plastic waste. Wheeler’s fresh journal-style graphic novel acknowledges the reality of plastic pollution while offering accessible activist solutions, playfully-illustrated sustainability tips, and an optimistic look into how modern scientists are combating waste.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two seemingly mismatched middle schoolers must partner up when tasked with a sustainability-themed assignment in this concise graphic novel debut by Wheeler and Huntington. Studious Charlie, portrayed with brown skin, has little faith that class clown Oliver, an East Asian–cued boy who prefers superheroes to research, will be much help with their project. The two routinely butt heads until they stumble upon a classmate's project called Time Bot, a clunky object resembling a go-cart. When the duo climb into the machine, they're mysteriously transported—with a "BWOOP!" and a "POP!"—to 72 CE Pompeii. Before they can travel back home, however, they must gather data surrounding recycling and sustainable practices or risk being stuck in the past forever. Subsequent time jumps to Edo-era Japan, 18th-century Philadelphia, and 19th-century N.Y.C. result in rapid-fire history lessons about resource management and environmental safety systems. While the overall pacing is sometimes choppy, the wide-ranging timeline provides glimpses into sustainability procedures spanning centuries, and the chronological momentum emphasizes the practice's evolutionary elements and connectivity across cultures. These snack-size history lessons—rendered in eye-catching color and easy-to-follow paneling interspersed with brief instructional guides—employ lightly slapstick humor to deliver digestible informational fare. Ages 10–14.
