Crashed, Smashed, and Mashed : A Trip to Junkyard Heaven

Dynamic, detailed full-color photographs bring into crisp focus the day-to-day adventures of life in a salvage yard, and includes a glossary of junkyard terms.

Gr 3-6-The subtitle says it all. Through superb, up-close and personal, full-color photographs and descriptive text, armchair visitors can follow along as wrecks and old cars have their fluids drained, their engines pulled, sheet metal removed, and parts such as batteries and radios stored for resale. Those cars still good enough for parts go to their own special resting place in the salvage yard, organized by make, model, and year. The rest go to the crusher, eventually ending up in a metal-recycling center. It's a nitty-gritty, dirty process providing enormous recycling benefits. With a glossary full of junkyard talk and a page of recycling facts, this book is one that readers will pick up to learn the lingo and to understand a bit about the salvage process.

Pamela K. Bomboy, Chesterfield County Public Schools, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 6-8. The junkyard heaven that author Mitchell and photographer Borns show off here is strictly for cars, and there are acres and acres of them, along with piles of tires and flats loaded with batteries. Children will have fun scanning the crystal-clear pictures and trying to identify what's what. Mitchell's description of how old cars are recycled (crashed, smashed, and mashed) is interesting as well, although defining terms (catalytic converter, for example) in the text would have saved a lot of flipping back to the glossary. The text supplies just enough about what goes on--from the moment a car comes into the yard to the resources recycled autos yield (set down on a page at the back) to maintain interest. Those younger children who like anything about automobiles will ask about the pictures; older ones will come away more knowledgeable about an aspect of recycling not often discussed. Stephanie Zvirin
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