The First Page

Please join me on Wednesday, Jan. 24 at THE FIRST PAGE bookstore in Newport Beach, CA. I will be reading and signing my latest book, Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash! The event begins at 10 am.

For details, please visit www.thefirstpage.net or call the store at (949) 644-5437.

See you there!

My latest children's book, Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash! is now available in bookstores and online. Illustrated by Will Hillenbrand, Smash! Mash! Crash! is a rhyming picture book for the young trash truck lover in your life.



The reviews have been excellent.

From Midwest Book Review:

SMASH! MASH! CRASH! THERE GOES THE TRASH! By Barbara Odanaka will prove a delight for any child, urban or rural, familiar with the early wake-up call of the garbage truck. A rhythmic and noisy text filled with appealing sounds follows two garbage trucks on their route - and dogs, pigs, and more who can't wait for them to arrive! Perfect for read-alouds.


From Julie Cummins, Booklist:

Another book about garbage trucks? Well, yes, but instead of focusing on a swaggering, loudmouthed vehicle, as Kate McMullan does in I Stink! (2002), this book stars a couple of pigs. Leaping out of bed early in the morning, the pigs watch two garbage trucks groaning, gobbling, and grinding as they make their noisy rounds. Hillenbrand's textured illustrations, in egg tempera and ink on canvas, depict the machines as giant, mechanical toads on wheels. The midnight-blue background gradually lightens to cream as daylight comes and the garbage workers (also pigs) pick up their loads, including cast-off furniture and dirty diapers. After the big buildup, the end is rather tame, but the rhyming text is as descriptive as the art ("Gooey, gloppy. / Slimy, sloppy. / Truck's a rolling bug buffet. / Flies a-buzzin' by the dozen-- / lapping up that cheese souffle"). The antics of three dogs drooling after the trucks in anticipation of fallout extend the comedy.

From School Library Journal's Joy Fleishhacker:

PreSchool-Grade 1–Rhythmic, rhyming language abounds as two piglets welcome the early-morning arrival of a pair of Rumbling, roaring garbage trucks. All of the offal details are here as the green behemoths gobble up everything from apple cores and dirty diapers to broken furniture. Smiling porcine workers, with Greasy gloves…sticky boots…/stains a-plenty on their suits, feed the beasts while Flies a-buzzin'/by the dozen enjoy a feast at the rolling bug buffet.

After completing all of the Crushing,/cramming,/screeching,/slamming, the vehicles thunder away, leaving the youngsters to re-create the action with their toy replicas. Done in ink and egg tempera on canvas, the vivacious two-page paintings convey the text's enthusiasm and energy. The trucks, shown from the rear and personified with mouthlike hoppers and red brakelight eyes, gleefully munch their way through an array of vividly colored refuse. The pigs are appealing, and readers can follow the antics of their dogs as they rush outside to be part of the fun. Pair this onomatopoeic offering with other tongue-tingling read-alouds, such as Kate McMullan's I Stink! (2002) and Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha's Trashy Town (1999, both HarperCollins), for a crash-bang storytime on a perennially popular topic.