By reading the title of the book and viewing the cover, I thought this would be a picture book. However, the book “They Threw Us Away” was actually a chapter book.
What I loved about this book was that the author (Daniel Kraus) had such a big imagination, which was apparent through his writing.
Some things I didn’t like were how long the book was and how some parts were written in a frightening manner. The length of the book and the word usage would make it perfect for upper elementary students, but as an educator, I know that third through fifth graders would probably not read a book about teddy bears. Also, some of the words (like the poem at the beginning, the information about Forever Sleep, and the detailed situations that the bears faced in the garbage dump) may scare kids.
Overall, I would rate this book 2.5/5.

This was such a heartwarming, heartbreaking story. I'm emotional over teddy bears. It was emotional, with Sugar being my favorite of the teddies.

"They Threw Us Away" is not what I was expecting. There were some good parts, but overall I wasn't impressed.

What is the intended audience?
The cover makes this look like a sweet picture book, the story starts out with hopeful teddy bears wishing to be adopted, then it becomes really dark. Teddies are neglected, abused and tortured. "Limbless torsos were plopped about..." "The only part of the pink teddy that moved were the white wisps of stuffing fluttering from her eye holes."
The vocabulary ranges from childlike quotes of the teddies speaking "This is a super-wooper snug" to "There was nothing inspiring about this stretch of road or these anonymous office buildings" and phrases about a teddy "theorizing."
I wanted to like this book, but don't know I would recommend this book to. A child, a teen, an adult?