I Stink!

It's a fine night for the garbage truck. It makes its rounds, collecting curbside trash throughout the city and delivering it to the garbage scow. Heard this before? Not the way Kate and Jim McMullan have created it and Andy Richter presents it. For the young trash truck aficionado, this is the definitive recording. As the anatomy of the truck is exposed and its mechanisms explained, probable contents are revealed and cheered. The work of every sanitation department is championed. With a superb musical accompaniment, Andy Richter brings the McMullans' visual artistry and story to life. Each word has the inflection and pacing that it suggests. Richter's deep and gravelly voice sounds just like the voice of a proud, no-nonsense garbage truck. Fun from first pickup to last! A.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2005 ALA Notable Recording 2005 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Starred review from February 18, 2002
A rowdy, ravenous New York City garbage truck is the unlikely—and thoroughly engaging—narrator of this comical collaboration by the creators of Hey Pipsqueak!
and Nutcracker Noel. "Know what I do at night/ while you're asleep?" asks the brazen vehicle, "Eat your TRASH, that's what." The perspective then shifts so that readers look outside from within the truck's tail end, as garbage bags hurl through the air and land inside its "hopper." As the truck rolls around town, ingesting garbage, he saucily asks, "Did I wake you?/ Too bad!" Jim McMullan's whimsically exaggerated art humorously reflects the personality of this hero, whose windshield serves as bulging eyes and whose bumper becomes an enormous set of teeth. As the trash inside his belly gets compacted, a full spread records his loud "BURRRP!" (indicated in large red typeface that stretches across the gutter). The truck contentedly ("Ahhhhhh!") announces that he now has room for "alphabet soup," and presents a gratifyingly gross ABC of items that he devours: from "apple cores" to "dirty diapers,... fish heads,... kitty litter,... puppy poo,... ugly underpants..." and "zipped-up ziti with zucchini." He freely admits to his stench, then reminds readers, "Go on,/ hold your nose,/ but think about it—/ Without me?/ You're on Mount Trash-o-rama, baby," as only skyscraper tops (including the Chrysler Building) clear the pictured mound of refuse. After the fellow unloads his contents on a river barge (with a "PLOP!"), he heads back to the garage ("See you tomorrow night, guys"), while kids will eagerly return to the beginning of this hilarious homage to an unsung hero. Ages 4-8.