This book is suddenly feeling really relevant again...

I had this book when I was a kid and I still think about it all the time, when I'm deciding whether to bother rinsing out a can so I can recycle it or just toss it in the trash, for example. I think about the illustration of the crumpled donut wrapper and I rinse out the can.

A story about the possible futures of earth if we litter too much. It was pretty good.

A bit preachy with its message of the importance of environmental conservation, but the illustrations are stunning, as always, and the settings imaginative. What a beautiful future finally does eventuate, presided over by two tall trees.

Walter hasn't got time to consider the immediate world around him. He doesn't want to think about preservation or conservation or doing his part to look after the planet: his eyes and mind are set on the future in which he can own an aeroplane and have a robot do all his work for him. So when he sees that his neighbour, Rose, shows him her birthday present: a tree planted in her back yard, he scoffs and heads off to sleep.
But Walter's dreams are full of uncomfortable and portentous visions. Views lost to smog, a sea in which fish are sparse, a landscape carpeted in mountains of litter and Everest tamed, ridiculed by mankind. Just as with Scrooge, Walter returns changed and understands that ignoring the present is dangerous. Instead on his own birthday he thinks about that little act of Rose and makes a choice that changes his path forever.
I may have questioned how much text Allsburg calls on during the dream sequences (I don't think any were needed) but I still think the message is well done an is a lovely little piece of ecoliterature. As always, Allsburg's illustrations are a delight.