Wake Up, Freddy

Ever wondered where your electricity was coming from when your clock radio alarm went off in the morning and an old Abba song came on (after you threw the offending instrument across the room)? In this CINE Golden Eagle award-winning film, an upscale working guy named Freddy gets ready for work (turning off the alarm, taking a shower, eating toast, and taking out the trash), while we get to follow the path of the electricity and the water (both incoming and outgoing), see how bread is made, and take a trip to the landfill with Freddy's garbage. Non-narrated, the whimsical music pulls us amiably along the pipes and through the processing stations (kind of like the camerawork in Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead series, only neither quite as suspenseful nor fun). What Wake Up, Freddy does--and does well--is to remind the instant gratification crowd (kids aged 6 mos. to 29-years-old) that power, water, and even bread do not appear by magic. A good discussion starter for a talk about using resources. Recommended for elementary school libraries. (R. Pitman)