Kids get so excited, they don’t even realize they’re learning when they read teacher-turned author Bart King’s books. King’s newest title – Bart’s King Sized Book of Fun – is  a great addition to his series of wildly popular kids guide books to all the worthwhile things in life.

barts king sized book of fun

(Past books include The Big Book of Gross Stuff, The Pocket Guide to Magic and The Pocket Guide to Mischief.) Bart’s King Sized Book of Fun is stuffed to bursting with awesome activities, silly jokes, trivia and puzzles – a modern kids companion they won’t leave home without. (Gibbs Smith and Raincoast Books)

I like trash as much as the next girl.

And kitchen junk, like poxy pastel Tupperware, rusted baking tins and tatty old aprons turns my crank quite a lot.

That’s why I love the book Kitchen Junk, by American junk queen Mary Randolph Carter (Penguin Group, Viking Studio, 1999). The third book in Carter’s “junk trilogy” – proceeded by American Junk and Garden Junk – shows how, in the right hands, piles of crap can be works of art. Sometimes functional ones. Just because I can’t do it, doesn’t mean I don’t believe.

Read on for an interview with the irrepressible Mary Randoph Carter and a book review.

Kitchen Junk by Mary Randolph Carter

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