Readers United Book Reviews | Bigger Than a Bread Box

We hope you welcome one of our new writers, Jamie Shin '20! She will be posting her book review posts in two parts; look forward to the second one on Sunday.

Bigger Than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder

What would you do if you had a magic box that gave you everything that you wished for? Now think of that while answering this question—Would you still do it if you knew that everything that the box gave you was actually stolen from someone else?

In Bigger Than a Bread Box, twelve-year-old Rebecca is resentful because she has to move at a moment’s notice because of her mother. Although Rebecca knows that her parents are fighting and her mom just wants to get away from her dad, she does not want to leave.

Her life in her new town starts out terribly; Rebecca misses her dad and argues with her mother all the time. She becomes a rebel, disagreeing with everything her mother and grandmother say. Homesick and miserable, she wishes for seagulls one day when she is in the dusty attic of her grandmother’s house, since seagulls remind her of her old home. Suddenly, Rebecca finds a breadbox, and when she opens it, seagulls come out!

Slowly, Rebecca realizes the magic of the box, and starts wishing for everything she wants. She tries wishing for her parents to get back together, for her dad to be there with her, and many more wishes that cannot be fulfilled. It doesn’t work, and she thus learns that she needs to find her own way to be happy.

However, things take a turn for the worse when she finds out that every time she uses the magic box, all the things she wishes for are actually taken from someone else. Rebecca’s problems seem larger than life. Will she ever be able to be happy and get out of the trouble she has put herself in?

Verdict: Though Bigger Than a Bread Box is definitely a light read, it covers many heavier themes. I would recommend this book to young audiences that are looking for a good book to sit down and read on a Sunday afternoon. It prompts the reader to question whether or not one’s happiness is worth sacrificing for another’s by taking the reader through a journey of a teenage girl’s mind.