Fiction - General & Miscellaneous, Fiction - Emotions & Behaviors, Fiction - People with Special Needs, Fiction - Schools & Friendship, Fiction - Family Life

A Box of Friends

Name: A Box of Friends
Author: Pam Mu
ISBN: 9781577684206

by Pam Mu

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Overview

Award winning author Pam Munoz Ryan has created a heart-warming tale about a girl adjusting to a new home. When Annie's family moves to the beach, Annie misses her friends and is worried that she won't be able to make new ones. Luckily, Grandma knows just what to do. She shows Annie a box filled with mementos—a feather, a white stone, and a bouquet of roses— and explains how each of these things reminds her of a special day with one of her friends. Together, she and Annie decorate a box for Annie and fill it with things that will remind Annie of the friends she misses so much.

Beautiful watercolors bring to life this gentle story about a girl learning to live in a new home by keeping the memories of her friends in a special "memory box."

About the Author, Pam Mu

Pam Munoz Ryan has written over 25 books for young people, including When Marian Sang, a Sibert Honor book, Publisher Weekly’s Favorite Picture Book of the Year 2002, and an ALA Notable Book. Esperanza Rising, winner of the Pura Belpre Medal, the Jane Addams Peace Award, and an ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults, the Americas Award Honor Book and one of five finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The acclaimed Amelia and Eleanor Go For A Ride is an ALA Notable Book, an American Booksellers' Book of the Year Finalist, and an IRA Teachers' Choice. Her novel, Riding Freedom has garnered many awards including the national Willa Cather Award and the California Young Reader Medal. And Mice and Beans is a recent ALA Notable Book.

She was born and raised in Bakersfield, California and received her Bachelor's and Master's Degrees at San Diego State University. She now lives in north San Diego County with her husband and children.

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Editorials

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3-When Annie moves to a new town by the sea with her parents and grandmother, she misses her old friends. To console her, Grandma shows her the "box of friends" that she has made for herself-a box of mementos of all the dear people she has had in her life. Annie begins to overcome her loneliness as she creates her own box, putting in an arrowhead her friend Matthew gave her, an origami frog from her Japanese pen pal, and a piece of smooth sea glass from Grandma. When she receives a party invitation from the girl down the street that says she can bring a friend, she goes through the box and selects the green sea glass (and her grandmother) to accompany her. Whyte's soft, sea-washed watercolors match Ryan's gentle text. This is a lovely, if slight, tale about the comforts of friendship, even in memory.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.