Bigger than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Only people who don’t know seagulls think they’re prefect and pretty – all white and soaring and dipping and everything.
Rebecca’s parents haven’t been getting along too well for a while now. Still, it’s a shock when her mother suddenly packs her and her two-year-old brother Lew into the car and takes them to Gran’s house in Atlanta. There, in the attic, Rebecca finds a bread box that has the power to grant any wish… as long as the wish is something that can fit in the box. Money, an iPod, and a Baltimore seagull are all things the box can give her. But what she really wants is to go home and be a family again.
At twelve years old, Rebecca is old enough to know that things aren’t good between her parents, but still young enough to try to wish them into happiness. Besides her ruptured home life, she also has to deal with being the new girl in school. She wants to be a good kid and do the right thing, but she is just a kid, and sometimes she messes up. Sometimes, she even makes things worse by trying to make them better.
Snyder deftly blends the all-too-familiar reality of separating parents and middle school mean girls with the fantastic bread box. Although clever readers might pick up on the problem with the box well before Rebecca does, this is a satisfying tale of magical realism for the middle grades.
Book Source: I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher for review.
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