Total Garbage - by Rebecca Donnelly (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Total Garbage by Rebecca Donnelly dives into the messy truth about trash, garbage, waste, and our world--it's a fact-filled and fascinating illustrated middle grade environmental read!

Trash has been part of human societies since the beginning. It seems like the inevitable end to the process of making and using things--but why?

In this fascinating account of the waste we make, we'll wade into the muck of history and explore present-day STEM innovations to answer these important questions:

What is garbage?
Where does our garbage come from?
Why do we make so much garbage?
Where does our garbage go?
What can we learn from our garbage?
How bad is our garbage problem?
How can we do better?

Rebecca Donnelly tackles the extraordinary, the icky, and the everyday, helping us see how our choices, personal and societal, impact our world and our planet--and encouraging us to make a change.

Back matter includes a timeline of the history of waste management, selected bibliography, and index.

Review Quotes

★ "This thorough and thoughtful treatment allows readers to understand the many complicated issues and possibly generate their own individual solutions. Here, Donnelly has turned trash into readers' treasure." -Horn Book Magazine, starred review

★"A fact-filled and fascinating dumpster dive of a book."-Kirkus, starred review

"Incredibly, this book makes garbage fun to read about and is a great choice for browsable nonfiction shelves and curricular tie-ins." -School Library Journal

A 2025 Texas Topaz Nonfiction Pick
A 2024 Bank Street Best Book of the Year
A 2023 SLJ Best Book of the Year
A 2023 Chicago Public Library Best of the Year

About the Author

Rebecca Donnelly is the author of many best-loved books for children, including Cats Are a Liquid (nominated for the Mewbery Award), How Slippery Is a Banana Peel?, and Super Spaghetti. Her debut middle-grade novel, How to Stage a Catastrophe, was an Indies Introduce/Kids' Indie Next pick. Rebecca lives in and writes from northern New York.

John Hendrix is a New York Times-bestselling illustrator and the author of many children's books, including Shooting at the Stars, Drawing Is Magic, and John Brown: His Fight for Freedom.