The Big Box by Toni Morrison

In her first illustrated book for children, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison introduces three feisty children who show grown-ups what it really means to be a kid.

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.”