Don't Throw That Away!: A Lift-the-Flap Book about Recycling and Reusing (Little Green Books)
In this small, lift-the-flap board book in the Little Green Books series, a pig-tailed girl, clad in a red superhero-like cape, invites kids to reuse things rather than discard them. Each spread features an object and a suggestion for its reuse, which is revealed with a lift of a flap: “Do you see that old jar? Don’t throw that away! You can turn it into . . . a new vase!” Other suggestions include turning plastic jug into bird feeders, used cans into instruments, parents’ old clothes into costumes, and a box into a toy car. The book itself is made of “100% recycled material,” and the cheerful color illustrations appear muted against the matte, brown-bag-colored backgrounds of the pages. Though the title mentions recycling, the focus here is really on repurposing, although the suggestions don’t provide specific how-to’s. Nonetheless, kids will likely understand the simply related message, revealed in a playful, interactive format, and they may also find some creative inspiration from the narrator’s ideas. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Shelle Rosenfeld