A powerful story about the "junkyard wonders"

Polacco, P. (2010). The junkyard wonders. New York, NY: Scholastic.

The picture book The Junkyard Wonders is a very powerful book.  My school librarian recommended this book to me, since I was looking for another Patricia Polacco book to read.  This book, like Pink and Say and other books by this author, is a true story from Polacco’s life.  This book is about a year in Polacco’s life when she went to school in Michigan.  She is placed in a class called the “junkyard” because all the students in that class are a little bit different from their peers.  From the beginning, their teacher Mrs. Peterson strives to show all the students that they are geniuses and are each unique and special in their own way.  During the school year, the students go on a field trip to a junkyard to find items that can be made into something new.  Polacco’s tribe (her group that she always works with) finds parts to make an airplane.  Their hope is to have it fly to the moon. 

As stated earlier, this is a very powerful book.  There are themes of friendship, dealing with heartbreak, and learning to ignore bullies.  Each of these themes are things that can occur in a student’s life.  This would be a great book to read at the beginning of the school year.  It would also be a good book to have great discussions with.  Students can use their schema for school, friendship, and bullies to relate to and understand this story.

The Junkyard Wonders’ illustrations are done in a realistic art style.  They are rendered with pencil and then colored in with marker.  The illustrations cover ¾ of the double-page spread, with the text taking up the remaining ¼ of the page.  The text is usually on the left-hand side of the spread.  This book has plain endpapers, but the flyleaf in the front is really neat.  It includes a prologue for the book, explaining why the main character of the story is attending a new school.  It also shows an illustration of the main character, full of hope for the upcoming school year.  On the verso of the title page is the publishing history.  There is also a dedication on that page.  This book is dedicated to Mrs. Peterson (the teacher in the book) and Polacco’s tribe, further proof that this book is a true story about the author’s life.  At the end of the story, there is an epilogue of sorts.  It tells about each of the tribe members as they got older.  It was neat to read that one of the children worked on the Apollo missions for NASA, and that the others seemed to be doing well, too.  Polacco also had an epilogue in Pink and Say that told how the story was related to her.  I think this makes the book become more real for the reader.

BIG QUESTIONS: 

1. Before reading the book, ask students to write or share what they think it means to be a genius.  Discuss this before reading.  (Genius is defined on the third page of text.  It is a really empowering definition.)  

2. How would you feel if you were part of the junkyard wonders?  

3. How does Mrs. Peterson allow her students to be creative and learn all that they can?