Milk and Juice: A Recycling Romance by Meredith Crandall Brown (review)

“Once upon a time, in a refrigerator not too far away,” Milk and Juice fell madly in love, but theirs was a romance tragically cut short: one morning, Juice is tossed in the recycling bin, and Milk—still somewhat full—stays behind. Soon, Juice is at the recycling center and remerges as a soap bottle, searching for Milk at her next gig by the kitchen sink. Juice goes through several more transformations and locations, but the search for its love remains fruitless. Meanwhile, Milk has been thrown out on a journey as well, traveling the globe in a variety of plastic iterations. Just as they both resign themselves to a lonely life, they’re brought together as a park bench, a permanent situation that finally gives them their happily ever after. This charming tale of sustainability wisely trades didacticism for humor, and the pair’s dramatic exhortations of lovelorn angst (“I am trapped in the deep, dark dungeon of my aching, heartbroken soul. . . . For my Milk, my one and only true love, is lost to me FOREVER”) and the spattering of onomatopoeia will make this an absolute delight for storytime. The pencil, watercolor, and gouache art has a textured liveliness to it with intriguing little asides (what happens to the other personified refrigerator residents?) and subtle angles and repeating motifs keep the busyness anchored. Closing pages walk readers through a series of panels showing how a plastic bottle is recycled into a toy truck, filling in some of the book’s gaps.