By Tony AbbottCall number: J Abbott
Best for Grades: 4-7
Tony Abbott’s Lunch-Box Dream reminded me of a cross between Christopher Paul Curtis’s Newbery Honor Book Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963 and the best selling adult novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett.
In June 1959 Bobby is a white boy from Ohio traveling with his mother, grandmother, and older brother, Ricky, through the South stopping to look at Civil War battlefields. Jacob is ten years old and also on the road to spend time with far-away relatives. Their paths come closer and closer together until they finally cross. Each chapter leaves you wondering what happens next until the very last page.
One thing I liked about this book was the different points of view the story was written in. We get to know what characters are thinking when they meet one another and what drives their actions (even if we don’t like or agree with them.) In this novel we see the beginnings of the civil rights movements from the point of view of every day people and the strong influence of prejudice, fear, and the Jim Crow laws not typically depicted so blatantly in children’s books.
Lunch-Box Dream would make a great book to read with your children, class, or in a book group to discuss the issues that come up—family stresses, race relations, loss of a loved one, and American history are just a few topics which you can talk about together.
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-JW-
