The bin monster by Annabelle Hale

The street is a great place to live, neighbours know each other, the narrator does crosswords with Mr Morris, helps Mrs Lou water her garden and makes funny faces with baby Samir.

Everyone in the street is aware of their environment, so the bins are always in use and there is no litter to be found. The bins are put out on Tuesday evening, but each Wednesday morning rubbish is found strewn around the streets, the bins askew and lids left open wide. But who is the scoundrel who does this? The people decide to stop the monster who tips over their bins. Mr Morris puts bricks on top of his bin, hoping to stop the bin monster, but it doesn’t work. Mrs Lou puts a big stick through the cover hoping to deter the monster, but it too does not work.

The narrator hears them in the night, squabbling, noisy and scattering rubbish, and draws an image of what it may look like. No matter what they do, the rubbish is all over the street when they wake up. The narrator decides to act. She listens through the night, making some armour for herself to defend the bins. But pursuing her quest when the noise occurs, she finds cockatoos pulling the rubbish out of the bins. The bin monsters have been exposed. Now what to do?

Lots of questions will occur to the readers as they read this story. Initially, they will ask questions about what the street population can do to stop the bin monster. They will laugh at the methods tried and the failures that ensue. Then the big question will be about how they can deter the bin monsters when they find out just who they are.

The funny illustrations will engage readers as they ponder the problems posed in this story. I love the images of the rubbish strewn street, rubbish even finding itself in the trees. The endpapers give a lovely double page image of before and after, with cheeky cockatoos peering out of the tree.

Themes: Humour, Cockatoos, Rubbish, Recycling, Problem solving.

Fran Knight