I Need a Lunch Box

Caines, Jeannette

ISBN 10: 0060209852 ISBN 13: 9780060209858

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1988

Synopsis

Sometimes it's hard to be a younger brother and watch your older sister get everything she needs to start school -- especially when what you want most is to have a bright, shiny new lunch box just like hers. And it doesn't matter if you're still not old enough to go to school -- a lunch box is the perfect place to keep dozens of things besides food.

In a wonderful and imaginative collaboration of talents, Jeannette Caines and Pat Cummings have teamed up to create a delightful fantasy about one boy's dream of having a lunch box of his own.

About this title

About the Author:

Jeannette Franklin Caines is the author of Chilly Stomach and Just Us Women, a Reading Rainbow Book, as well as several other highly acclaimed picture books about children and their families. She is also the recipient of the National Black Child Development Institute's Certificate of Merit and Appreciation.

Ms. Caines grew up in Harlem and now lives in Freeport, Long Island.

Pat Cummings was born in Chicago but grew up traveling with her military family all over the world. She has been writing and illustrating children's books since she graduated from Pratt Institute. In addition to her art for the Coretta Scott King Award winner My Mama Needs Me by Mildred Pitts Walter, Pat's luminous work includes Angel Baby; Clean Your Room, Harvey Moon!; and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Talking With Artists. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Chuku Lee, and the ghost of their cat, Cash.

From School Library Journal:

PreSchool-Grade 1 A black girl is beginning first grade and getting all sorts of goodies, in particular a lunch box for which her little brother yearns with a single-minded passion. However, his mother says that he must wait until he starts school. This rather slim plot is fleshed out through a sequence in which the narrator dreams of a brightly-colored, imaginatively-shaped lunch box for each weekday. At last, on his sister's first day of school, their father surprises the boy with a spaceship lunch box of his own. Brightly patterned objects such as shoes, school supplies, marbles, animals, and of course decorated lunch boxes float through the vividly-colored pages. The simple text makes the story suitable for preschoolers. The drama of family relationships is honestly portrayed, although the issue of whether the father has contradicted the mother, which may bother some parents, is buried in the happy ending. Leda Schubert, Vermont Department of Education, Montpelier
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0060209852
• ISBN 13: 9780060209858
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Cummings Pat