• Age: 4 to 7
• Grade: k to 3
• Reading age: 5 to 8

A new picture book encouraging young readers to consider the environment and to reuse and recycle from the author of The Imperfect Garden.

What makes something a treasure? In Beautiful Junk a young boy's neighbour is getting ready to move to their new home and leaves all of their "junk" on the curb. He soon discovers, however, that one person's junk can be another person's treasure. To his amazement, people go through the piles and find uses for many items that had been ready to go in to the garbage truck. Is it possible that even he could find a treasure from the pile?

This book is a follow-up to "The Imperfect Garden" and is keeping with the theme of environmentally friendly actions. Children can learn to value and re-imagine items to save them from the landfill.

Melissa Assaly is an elementary school teacher who lives with her husband and son, Jay, in Toronto, Ontario. When she is not teaching she enjoys travelling and cooking.

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Samantha Lucy Haslam is an illustrator, graphic designer and animator from Calgary, Alberta. She graduated from the Visual Communications program at the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2012, with a major in illustration.

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