Milk and Juice: A Recycling Romance

Upon meeting in the fridge, beverages Milk and Juice “kept each other cold through long, hot nights,” but when “the cruel hand of fate” sends Juice to the recycling center, the pair must find their way back to one another in this creative eco-love story. Pale mixed media scenes, rendered in graphite pencil and eraser, gouache, watercolor pencils, and digitally, show Juice recycled variously into a bottle of dish soap, a marker, and laundry detergent. Meanwhile, a spread of delicate illustrations track multilingual, apparently globe-trotting Milk’s efforts to seek out Juice at more than a dozen international landmarks. (“Succo?” Milk asks alongside the Colosseum.) Luckily, fate has a fourth “R” in store for the plastic pals: reduce, reuse, recycle, and reunion. Crandall Brown’s quippy dialogue keeps the tone light, while a concluding series of comic-style panels teaches readers how recycling happens. An original and clever debut about the transformative power of love and recycling. Ages 4–8. (Dec.)