Trash Mountain
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This you should know: Gray squirrels are almost always larger, faster, and more aggressive than reds. They out-eat the reds and out-breed them. Science says the grays will eventually win.
Nutley is a young red squirrel. For most of his life, he's been content to live on local seeds and the cautious wisdom of his parents. But like so many young squirrels before him, he feels the call of the wild (and the hazelnuts) beyond the safety of his family's own tree. Nutley wonders what it would be like to be Dangerous, like the growing band of gray squirrels that roam his neighborhood.
Nature, which is truly red in tooth and claw, forces Nutley to find out if he's cut out for a life of danger. He must flee his familiar tree for the smelly shelter of the local landfill. There, with the help of some unlikely allies, he might just be able to make a stand against the grays.
This you should know: No matter what scientists say is almost always true, the exceptions are almost always the best stories.
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When an inquisitive red squirrel named Nutley summons the nerve to offer the "Paw of Friendship" to a group of nearby gray squirrels, they respond by tossing him off a cliff. Fearing for his life after the Grays subsequently kill his parents, Nutley escapes to a landfill, Trash Mountain, where he settles in among the rats and gulls. "It was said that the very earth of Trash Mountain was sullied and malodorous, which is another way of saying it stank," writes Yolen (Stone Angel) in one of several context-bringing sections titled "This You Should Know," which appear between chapters. A story of identity and survival develops into one of friendship, courage, and teamwork, culminating in a tense showdown between the Grays and the landfill residents. Yolen balances the story's more upsetting moments with humor (a good bit of it is delivered by Larie, a rude but loyal gull Nutley befriends), while Monroe's (Monkey with a Tool Belt) b&w illustrations a mix of heavily inked scenes and wiry spot art capture Nutley's affability and determination to survive. Ages 8 15.
