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Laurel Snyder creates believable and memorable characters. They pop into your head when you're driving to work, grocery shopping, or recommending a book to a fourth grader. She writes stores that keep readers turning pages and absorbed until the very last word. Her latest middle-grade novel, Bigger Than a Bread Box, follows twelve-year-old Rebecca as she deals with her parents' separation, moving from Baltimore to Atlanta to live with her grandmother, and finding her place in a new school.
She discovers a magical bread box in her grandmother's attic. The box provides any item that fits inside it--a spoon, lip glass, an iPod, money. The bread box seems like a perfect item that makes life easier--little does Rebecca know the repercussions of using the bread box and the moral dilemma she faces as she finds herself in a sticky situation. If only the bread box could grant her biggest wish: her parents getting back together.
I wish I could magically place Bigger Than a Bread Box inside the backpack of every fifth-grade girl who wishes her parents would get back together, or inside the locker of every reflective sixth-grade boy who wishes his life would return to the way it used to be. There are hundreds of kids just waiting for someone to give them this book. It deserves a special place in every school and public library collection. Read it!
Travis Jonker and I named Laurel's Bigger Than a Bread Box a top book of 2011.
Borrow Laurel Snyder's middle-grade novels and picture books from your school or public library. Whenever possible, please support independent bookshops.
