Product Description

To make three youngsters - Patty, Mickey and Liza Sue - abide by their rules, the grown-ups - parents, teachers and other adults - create a world inside a box, a world with toys, games, treats and gifts. But all Patty, Mickey and Liza Sue really want is the freedom to be themselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #508721 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 48 pages

From Amazon.com
If Pulitzer Prize-winning Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and her son Slade hope to reach children with their rhyming message of personal freedom and individuality, they may have missed the mark. But if even a few excessively controlling grownups learn to "let children be children," this big, colorful picture book might serve its purpose after all. Patty, Mickey, and Liza Sue live in a big brown box (locked from the inside) with all the amenities a modern child dreams of: TV, Barbie, pizza, Spice Girls T-shirts, beanbag chairs, and Pepsi. All this, but no liberty. They've been placed in this box because the adults in their lives believe "those kids can't handle their freedom." They have too much fun in school, sing when they should be studying, feed honey to the bees, and play handball where they shouldn't. Parents, neighbors, and teachers are uncomfortable with these irrepressible children, and hope to control them with strict boundaries. Meanwhile, the younger-yet-wiser children just want the freedom to become themselves: "Even sparrows scream/ And rabbits hop/ And beavers chew trees when they need 'em./ I don't mean to be rude: I want to be nice,/ But I'd like to hang on to my freedom."

Giselle Potter's lovely, childlike paintings create an atmosphere of naïve bewilderment, as the plaintive children wail, over and over, "If freedom is handled just your way/ Then it's not my freedom or free." Morrison's first foray into children's literature is a puzzling, thickly ironic book that asks more questions than it answers. Even as a celebration of the unfettered exuberance of children in the face of societal oppression, a lighter touch would have done wonders. (Click to see a sample spread. Text copyright 1999 by Toni Morrison. Illustrations copyright 1999 by Giselle Potter. With permission of Jump at the Sun, Hyperion Books for Children.) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly
Nobel laureate Morrison's debut book for children unfortunately shows little of the childlike perspective that so masterfully informs The Bluest Eye. This enigmatic tale, written in verse, is inspired by a story made up by Morrison's then nine-year-old son. The opening scene depicts two girls and a boy who live in a "big brown box" with a door that has "three big locks." The trio have been sent there by adults who think they "can't handle their freedom." Suburban Patty has "too much fun in school all day" ("When we pledged to the flag, she'd spoil it"); urban Mickey writes his name on mailbox lids and plays handball next to a sign that forbids the game; and country girl Liza Sue lets the chickens keep their eggs and feeds honey to the bees. Each child, when told that he or she has overstepped the bounds, counters with the identical unchildlike response: "I know you are smart and I know that you think/ You're doing what is best for me./ But if freedom is handled just your way/ Then it's not my freedom or free." The parents, never visible visiting the box, nonetheless leave behind plenty of parting gifts (e.g., "Blimpies and Frisbees... and Matchbox cars that go"). In the final scene, the children, inexplicably, easily clamber over the sides of the big brown box to freedom. Potter's (Gabriella's Song) handsome illustrations in a postmodern folk-art style possess an austere simplicity, effectively marking the contrast to the adults' commercial bribes littering the floor. But ultimately the tale is mundane; the social commentary on childhood, freedom and the tendency of parents to give children things instead of time and attention seems aimed more at adult readers than children. Ages 8-up. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6-Morrison sets to rhyme a story her son created when he was nine-years-old. When three children make their parents, neighbors, or teachers nervous-Patty talks in the library, Mickey plays handball where he shouldn't, and Liza Sue lets the chickens on her farm keep their eggs-the adults decide that the youngsters can't handle their freedom and so choose to have them confined. A literal reading of the text says that they put them in a big box, but some will infer that they were institutionalized. Their parents visit on Wednesday nights and provide plenty of material gifts, but "the door only opens one way." Potter's moody, quirky, somber-colored illustrations, similar to those she created for Candace Fleming's Gabriella's Song (Atheneum, 1997), interpret the story quite literally, picturing nearly every object mentioned in the text, leaving little to readers' imaginations. The box varies between a furnished room with the three locks on the door referred to in the text, to the cardboard box on the cover, from which, at the end of the story, the three break free to recapture their personal freedom. This is a book that will have a hard time finding an audience: it looks like a picture book for younger children, yet the theme and images require some sophistication and a desire to explore life's boundaries. What children of any age will make of parents who decided to lock up their own children for relatively minor infractions remains to be seen.
Ellen Fader, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Thinking Outside The Box?
Patty, Mickey and Liza Sue all must live in a big brown box with doors that open only one way because they "can't handle their freedom." Patty's infraction is that she went four times to the toilet and talked in class; Mickey hollered in the hallway of his apartment; and Liza Sue, who lives in the country, let the chickens keep their eggs. These three kids do good things, however. They fold their socks, hang up their clothes, do fractions and give up peanut brittle, for example. Written by Toni Morrison and her brother Slade and lushly illustrated by Giselle Potter, this little book sends the message that parents should let their children be given a chance to handle their freedom.

What a wonderful lesson for parents to learn!

A different approach to discussing freedom
This is a wonderful story for both children and adults. It tells of three children that get into trouble in the adult world and are placed in a big brown box. The children are simply displaying typical childish actions, yet are misunderstood by their parents. Very authentic for children to understand.

I have shared this book in my fourth grade classroom for the past three years. Each time I share it the students seem to understand the message and what it means to them in their own way. Although some think that this story is inappropriate for children I feel that it is wonderful for all ages. Don't underestimate what children can understand and take away from good literature. This can be a great piece of literature to use to discuss the idea of freedom with children.

plastic toys & dolls with names
Feeling twinges of regret at my own childhood, this story resonated with me on a deep emotional level.

There is a tendency in today's society to replace experience with material objects, and for parents to protect their children by sheltering them from the world as opposed to guiding them through life experiences. Unlike other reviewers, I do not find the children in this story to be victims of emotional or behavioral disorders, but rather, alive with all the creativity and awareness that a child new to the world finds innate. The adults, unable to reconcile the self expression of each child finds it necessary to lock the child in "a box"-- a metaphor for over-protective adults encouraging conformity as opposed to creative thinking-- and further drives the point home by medicating the child with commercialism and imitations of real experience: plastic toys, televisions, dolls that have "already been named", Spice Girl tee shirts, pictures of the sky and small boxes of actual dirt.

This book does hold a strong message for adults, but I think that children who read this book should not be underestimated. Discussion about the themes could encourage children to think more about their role in society as creative thinkers.

Such as: What does it mean that the children receive dolls that are already named? Ask the child, "Do like naming your own dolls? What do you think about getting a toy that already has a name?" Questions along these lines explore ideas about self-expression and ingenuity, and hopefully looking at these parts of the story will allow most to get past their knee-jerk reaction that the book encourages rebellion against adults and instigates fear or disobedience in children.