Me and Marvin Gardens, by Amy Sarig King, is the story of a boy who discovers a very unusual animal and forms a bond of friendship with it. This is not your typical boy and his dog story. It’s more of a boy and his…what IS it anyway? This animal eats trash, specifically plastic trash. Could his species possibly be the solution to the waste produced by humans’ persistent reliance on plastics?

This book is a children’s book, written on a level that kids can understand, but it is the sort of story that is likely to lack appeal to most children. It is a hard book to get through, very slow throughout most of it. The plot has little action, and even adults may find it difficult to plow through at times. The author portrays the uniqueness of the creature well, but she struggles to bring the sense of either mystery or excitement of the unknown that should be present with a character with such unique potential as a plot device.

In addition to the slow pace of the book, this book has some other aspects that likely will not appeal to children. It reads more like a sermon on environmental conservation than an entertaining story, and the reader feels a sense of being preached at throughout the book. Also, some of the themes in the book, such as alcoholism and loss of a home through foreclosure, will be so foreign to most young readers that they will not hold the same interest as they would for more mature readers.

Even though this book was selected as a Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee, it’s unlikely to be as loved by its intended child audience as it was by the adults who choose those nominees. Give it a pass if you’re looking for entertainment for a young reader.

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Scholastic

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  2 religious exclamations; 1 mild obscenity.

Violence/Gore:  A few verbal threats; characters set booby traps; a few mentions of past wars, disease, natural disasters, or murders; a character thinks an animal is going to attack him and imagines it; a report of a child shot with a BB gun by another child is mentioned a couple of times; report of a bar fight with broken bones; a character looks a pictures of dead animals; a few reports of a man hitting his wife; report of an animal being shot; a character shows off scars from a previous wound a few times; discussion of people getting sick and dying due to pollution-related causes; a few instances of speculation that an animal may get hurt or killed; report of a natural death; a character has a bloody noses spontaneously a few times; a schoolyard fight with a bloody nose; a couple of brief descriptions of a painful medical procedure; a character has a scary nightmare about being chased.

Sex/Nudity:  A boy considers telling a girl “I love you”; report of a girl bringing boyfriends home without permission; a boy has a crush on his adult teacher, and this is mentioned a few times; boys keep a list of girls that they are going to kiss; a boy kisses a girl on the bus without her permission; boys have a magazine with pictures of women in underwear; boys tease a girl about “liking girls” as an insult; a boy blushes after discussing that an animal is male; a family discusses whether it was okay for a boy to kiss a girl without her permission and it is pointed out that this might lead to boys thinking they can do other things to girls without their permission, though “other things” is never expounded upon. In the afterward, there is a discussion about how consent for things such as kissing needs to be discussed at a young age.

Mature Subject Matter:

Loss of home; bullying; environmental destruction; domestic abuse; alcoholism; schemes to deceive parents, such as lying about whereabouts and clearing internet browsers to conceal online activity; discussion of need for consent before physical activity.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

Report of an adult smoking cigarettes; an adult has a reputation as an alcoholic.