Bigger Than a Breadbox / Laurel Snyder / 225 pages

The New York Times said this book is "as miraculous an insight about divorce as anyone could hope to have."  Publisher's Weekly said its "insightful, memorable, and complex characters...result in a story with the same qualities."  Twelve year old Rebecca realizes she is the new girl at school in Atlanta.  She had never been the new girl before.  She had "always been the Since Kindergarten kid" at her school in Baltimore.  But her mother wants a divorce from her father and has taken Rebecca and her three year old brother home to her mother's.  Rebecca finds a bread box collection in the attic of her grandmother's house.  Most are old, rusty, and empty.  One is new-looking, red, and contains an Agatha Christie mystery.  Is it possible that the bread box is magic?  Can Rebecca use it to get her parents back together?  Ms. Snyder certainly weaves a web of empathy around Rebecca.  The reader experiences along with her the tragedy of divorce and the desire to make everything better.  Would that every child going through this devastation had a magic bread box and a loving, understanding grandmother.