Laura Driscoll

As his pet cockroach keeps him company, Wally the robot shovels and scoops trash into his compacter every day, creating compacted trash blocks, and finding "goodies" to collect .

Smash trash!

Sarah Sammis

Months before we saw Wall-E (2008) Sean got himself a copy of Smash Trash! by Laura Driscoll. It's a level one readers' retelling of the first twenty minutes or so of the film.

As it's a Level One book, there's not much in the way of text but that's in keeping with the film which has no dialog at first beyond the song from Hello Dolly! (1969) that Wall-E is listening to. With creative and repetitive use of "smash" and "trash" Driscoll does a great job of capturing the bleak opening moments of the film.

Typically children's books from films just use screenshots as their illustrations. They are often blurry or pixelated. Smash Trash! has its own illustrations, drawn in a simplistic and bold style reminiscent of the 1950s educational films. The drawings work. They are faithful to the film but carry their own weight. The book doesn't feel slapped together as so many of these sorts of books do.

If you have a child who is learning to read and is a fan of the film, pick up a copy the next time the Scholastic book fair comes to school. That's where we got the book.

Smash trash!

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