Trash is a very controversial book, including when Blue Peter axed it from their shortlist for being too inappropriate. I don't really agree, but I still don't like this book.

I had not heard of this book or the author until the Guardian Children's Books site sent it to me, but I am very glad that they did because it is a really good book. I thought that the plot was very interesting, you were always wanting to know what is going to happen next and it is written in a very interesting style.

Parents need to know that this book is about three boys living in a trash dump -- and they are pretty frank about the often disturbing details of their impoverished lives. One is beaten by police and suffers nightmares afterward, while another lives in a rat-infested hole in the ground; all three face unsanitary, inhumane conditions as they work in trying to find anything of value in their trash dump city. In one scene, a protagonist cuts a would-be captor in the face with his hook, then flees during gunshots. A police interrogation and another description of a warehouse-like prison with endless cells and inmates will haunt readers.

Just 30 kilometres from Cambodia's world famous Angkor temples is an astounding sight tourists don't see.
Tucked away from foreign eyes on the outskirts of Siem Reap is a community of about 500 people who live - or survive - in a rubbish dump

Over the two decades before the COVID-19 pandemic, Cambodia underwent a significant transition, reaching lower middle-income status in 2015 and expressing the aspiration of attaining upper middle-income status by 2030. Driven by garment exports and tourism, Cambodia’s economy sustained an average annual growth rate of 7.7 percent between 1998 and 2019, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

ADB’s country partnership strategy for Cambodia, 2019–2023 supports the country’s post-pandemic recovery by strengthening the health systems and addressing key constraints to growth, competitiveness, inclusion, and sustainability.