Breadcrumbs
by Anne Ursu
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"Hazel and Jack are best friends until an accident with a magical mirror and a run-in with a villainous queen find Hazel on her own, entering an enchanted wood in the hopes of saving Jack's life" -- Provided by publisher.Tags
Recommendations
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BookshelfMonstrosity Brave girls who love to read and stories that come to life; one parent close and another distant; a supernatural arch-enemy; and a daring rescue mission inform these highly descriptive and enthralling fantasies.
20
BookshelfMonstrosity Ruled by a white witch, a wintry forest - enchanted and treacherous -- doesn't deter a young girl from trying to save a spellbound friend. Filled with fairy tale elements, both of these affecting fantasies speak to universal longings.
by jshonk
by bookel
Member Reviews
Once upon a time, Hazel and Jack were best friends. They had been best friends since they were six, spending hot Minneapolis summers and cold Minneapolis winters together, dreaming of Hogwarts and Oz, superheroes and baseball. Now that they were eleven, it was weird for a boy and a girl to be best friends. But they couldn't help it - Hazel and Jack fit, in that way you only read about in books. And they didn't fit anywhere else.
And then, one day, it was over. Jack just stopped talking to Hazel. And while her mom tried to tell her that this sometimes happens to boys and girls at this age, Hazel had read enough stories to know that it's never that simple. And it turns out, she was right. Jack's heart had been frozen, and he was taken into show more the woods by a woman dressed in white to live in a palace made of ice. Now, it's up to Hazel to venture into the woods after him. Hazel finds, however, that these woods are nothing like what she's read about, and the Jack that Hazel went in to save isn't the same Jack that will emerge. Or even the same Hazel. show less
And then, one day, it was over. Jack just stopped talking to Hazel. And while her mom tried to tell her that this sometimes happens to boys and girls at this age, Hazel had read enough stories to know that it's never that simple. And it turns out, she was right. Jack's heart had been frozen, and he was taken into show more the woods by a woman dressed in white to live in a palace made of ice. Now, it's up to Hazel to venture into the woods after him. Hazel finds, however, that these woods are nothing like what she's read about, and the Jack that Hazel went in to save isn't the same Jack that will emerge. Or even the same Hazel. show less
"In the woods where the woodsmen told lies, maybe it was the wolves who told the truth."
Eerie, literary, rich. Recommended. I listened to the audio a few years ago and felt that I was missing something, but it turns out that's a good way to read it at least for me, as I don't do audio much, and so there was the cachet of 'something special' associated with the experience. And of course I missed the pictures, which are nice but not critical (though it would have helped if I'd caught on more quickly that Hazel was of East Indian descent). In a way I missed almost nothing; in another way I missed almost everything. Brilliant book.
I could read it again. There's *so* much going on here beyond the plot. For example, why does Hazel think of show more herself as hollow, especially when she's meeting with the school counselor? Is she rescuing Jack for his sake, or for hers? Is she going to go back to school the same girl she was when she left, after this adventure? What *is* the point of plastic flowers? I'd love to discuss it with a group, or listen in as children discuss it.
And, perhaps just as importantly, has Ursu written anything else like it?
Another reread. I definitely get more out of this every time. I'm going to keep this paper copy I found in a LFL. Poetic, resonant, thoughtful.
"I believe that the world isn't always what we can see. I believe there are secrets in the woods. And I believe that goodness wins out."
Btw, Ursu's The Real Boy and The Lost Girl are also very much worth reading if, like me, you can't get enough of this kind of writing. show less
Eerie, literary, rich. Recommended. I listened to the audio a few years ago and felt that I was missing something, but it turns out that's a good way to read it at least for me, as I don't do audio much, and so there was the cachet of 'something special' associated with the experience. And of course I missed the pictures, which are nice but not critical (though it would have helped if I'd caught on more quickly that Hazel was of East Indian descent). In a way I missed almost nothing; in another way I missed almost everything. Brilliant book.
I could read it again. There's *so* much going on here beyond the plot. For example, why does Hazel think of show more herself as hollow, especially when she's meeting with the school counselor? Is she rescuing Jack for his sake, or for hers? Is she going to go back to school the same girl she was when she left, after this adventure? What *is* the point of plastic flowers? I'd love to discuss it with a group, or listen in as children discuss it.
And, perhaps just as importantly, has Ursu written anything else like it?
Another reread. I definitely get more out of this every time. I'm going to keep this paper copy I found in a LFL. Poetic, resonant, thoughtful.
"I believe that the world isn't always what we can see. I believe there are secrets in the woods. And I believe that goodness wins out."
Btw, Ursu's The Real Boy and The Lost Girl are also very much worth reading if, like me, you can't get enough of this kind of writing. show less
Hazel is having a difficult year. Her father has left their family, and now there is not enough money for Hazel to go to the private school where her creativity was valued and nurtured. Now, Hazel is in a different school, where there are many more rules and lines and tests and busywork and bullies, and all of a sudden she is not special and creative, she is a problem student, troubled and difficult. But at least Hazel has Jack, her best friend and next-door neighbor. Then, in the space of one day, Hazel's friendship with Jack changes. Suddenly he is mean to her, acting as if she doesn't exist, or worse, as if he sees her as just a pest and a bother. Everyone tells Hazel that these things happen as people grow up, but she can't accept show more it. Not in regards to her friendship with Jack. And then Jack disappears completely. One of his friends admits to Hazel that he saw Jack go into the forest with a mysterious woman in white, in a sleigh pulled by snow-white wolves -- a story completely at odds with Jack's parents' vague report that Jack went to visit a relative. When Hazel ventures into the woods herself, she finds that she is on a quest in a place that is somehow not just a patch of woods near the suburbs. The forest is populated by fairy tale creatures, woodsmen and wolves and all sorts of magic. And to the north there is a witch in a palace of ice -- but she only takes those who go with her willingly. Jack would never do that, Hazel argues . . . but how well does she know this new, cold-hearted Jack? Can she save him? Does Jack even want to be saved?
I'm a sucker for fairy tale retellings, and this one combines so many lovely stories, both the familiar and the less-familiar, that I couldn't help but adore it. The basic framework is The Snow Queen, of course, but there are lots of other elements of both Grimm and Andersen mixed in, and Hazel frequently references herr own favorite books, so there are glimmers of Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter and Narnia and even a nod to When You Reach Me, among many others. Hazel is a character who really touched my heart; her troubles at school mirrored some of my own experience, and I wish I could have read this book when I was Hazel's age. The writing is lovely, the pacing and plotting is excellent, and all in all, I think I can count this as one of my new favorites, a book I will return to again and again. show less
I'm a sucker for fairy tale retellings, and this one combines so many lovely stories, both the familiar and the less-familiar, that I couldn't help but adore it. The basic framework is The Snow Queen, of course, but there are lots of other elements of both Grimm and Andersen mixed in, and Hazel frequently references herr own favorite books, so there are glimmers of Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter and Narnia and even a nod to When You Reach Me, among many others. Hazel is a character who really touched my heart; her troubles at school mirrored some of my own experience, and I wish I could have read this book when I was Hazel's age. The writing is lovely, the pacing and plotting is excellent, and all in all, I think I can count this as one of my new favorites, a book I will return to again and again. show less
I remembered that I loved this book, but I didn't remember all the reasons why. I was a little surprised that it was a male narrator on the audiobook, but Kirby Heyborne did a very nice job with all the voices. I ached for Hazel, who is not only at a transitional age (5th grade), but dealing with her parents' divorce, her father's abandonment of her, a change in schools, and the mysterious and sudden change in her best friend, Jack. Despite her mother's well-meant theory that boy-girl friendships often change at this age, Hazel knows there's more going on - and once her idea is confirmed, there's no other choice but to go after Jack and save him from the White Witch, whether or not he wants to be saved.
Hazel is marvelously strong, and show more marginally prepared - with supplies such as energy bars and a change of clothes, but also with a solid knowledge of classic and contemporary fantasy and fairy tales. But the Woods don't always work the way they're supposed to, and it's hard to know who to trust. Nevertheless, Hazel succeeds in her journey - with readers cheering for her all the way. show less
Hazel is marvelously strong, and show more marginally prepared - with supplies such as energy bars and a change of clothes, but also with a solid knowledge of classic and contemporary fantasy and fairy tales. But the Woods don't always work the way they're supposed to, and it's hard to know who to trust. Nevertheless, Hazel succeeds in her journey - with readers cheering for her all the way. show less
Hazel Anderson's friend Jack stops talking to her, and then he disappears. Hazel and Jack have been best friends for years, through Hazel's parents' divorce and Jack's mom's depression, and they have created refuge for themselves and each other with their fantastic imaginations. When Jack goes missing, Hazel goes after him: the princess on a quest to rescue the prince. But from whom is she rescuing him? And does he want to be rescued?
This is a magical, delightful book that seemed to be over before it began - but now I'm eager to read more of the author's work. Breadcrumbs owes a lot to the children's/YA fantasy canon (C.S. Lewis' Narnia, J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and a show more whole slew of fairy tales and mythology), and it tips its hat to all of these with elegance and a sense of humor.
Quotes
People were always doing this sort of thing to Hazel. Nobody could accept that she did not want to hear [scientific explanations]...The truth of things was always much more mundane than what she could imagine, and she did not understand why people always wanted to replace the marvelous things in her head with this miserable heap of you're-a-fifth-grader-now facts. (3)
This is what happens on journeys - the things you find are not necessarily the things you had gone looking for. (235)
Maybe she didn't belong anywhere else because she belonged here. (236)
She had believed that because someone needed saving they were savable. (247) show less
This is a magical, delightful book that seemed to be over before it began - but now I'm eager to read more of the author's work. Breadcrumbs owes a lot to the children's/YA fantasy canon (C.S. Lewis' Narnia, J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and a show more whole slew of fairy tales and mythology), and it tips its hat to all of these with elegance and a sense of humor.
Quotes
People were always doing this sort of thing to Hazel. Nobody could accept that she did not want to hear [scientific explanations]...The truth of things was always much more mundane than what she could imagine, and she did not understand why people always wanted to replace the marvelous things in her head with this miserable heap of you're-a-fifth-grader-now facts. (3)
This is what happens on journeys - the things you find are not necessarily the things you had gone looking for. (235)
Maybe she didn't belong anywhere else because she belonged here. (236)
She had believed that because someone needed saving they were savable. (247) show less
Where do I begin? I feel as though anything I write about Breadcrumbs won't do it justice. That all the feelings that are wrapped up inside of me are entirely too large to fit into a review. Still, a review is the only way I know how to show my appreciation for this magical book, and so I'll do my best. I'll tell you now, if I could give this book a million star rating? I would. The entire time I was lost in Anne Ursu's brilliant story, I felt like I might be a bit enchanted myself. That feeling still hasn't gone away.
The writing is exquisite. Ursu weaves her words into a world filled with crystalline white snow. A world filled with boring school days, vivid imaginations, rocky friendships and a web of magic that pulses underneath it show more all. I knew that this was a retelling of "The Snow Queen" from the synopsis. I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. This isn't just a retelling. Instead it is a gorgeous mesh of two parallel worlds. One is a world in which a little girl is looking for where she belongs. For how she is supposed to fit. Then there is another world where steeling yourself against the ice, where forging forward despite the odds, is the only way to survive. This story is many things, but most of all it's a story about growing up and trying to hang onto that piece of yourself that growing up threatens to take away.
I cannot express enough how much I loved Hazel as a character. I've worked with kids for many years, and I know that it's tough to write a middle grade character who is as vibrant and layered as they are. Hazel is so very close to perfection in that respect. I believed I was in the mind of a fifth grader. I believed that Hazel was a real person with real thoughts and feelings. It's true that she is wise beyond her years, but I think I saw a little bit of myself in her. Reading and imagination go hand in hand. They take you magical places, and help you see the world in a new light. For Hazel, they show her that sometimes words are plastic flowers. That sometimes parents are just as lost as you are. Most of all, that sometimes the only thing you can do is push forward. Especially when your best friend needs you.
If I don't stop here, I'll gush for ages. I really will. I loved everything about this book. I smiled, and I cried. I drank this down like a person who hasn't had anything to drink in years. There was something missing inside me, something that called me to read this book. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this is the type of book that I want to read to my someday children. I would love to wrap myself up in its pages and live there forever. This book is pure magic, and it settles right into its rightful spot on my favorite books of all time. show less
The writing is exquisite. Ursu weaves her words into a world filled with crystalline white snow. A world filled with boring school days, vivid imaginations, rocky friendships and a web of magic that pulses underneath it show more all. I knew that this was a retelling of "The Snow Queen" from the synopsis. I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. This isn't just a retelling. Instead it is a gorgeous mesh of two parallel worlds. One is a world in which a little girl is looking for where she belongs. For how she is supposed to fit. Then there is another world where steeling yourself against the ice, where forging forward despite the odds, is the only way to survive. This story is many things, but most of all it's a story about growing up and trying to hang onto that piece of yourself that growing up threatens to take away.
I cannot express enough how much I loved Hazel as a character. I've worked with kids for many years, and I know that it's tough to write a middle grade character who is as vibrant and layered as they are. Hazel is so very close to perfection in that respect. I believed I was in the mind of a fifth grader. I believed that Hazel was a real person with real thoughts and feelings. It's true that she is wise beyond her years, but I think I saw a little bit of myself in her. Reading and imagination go hand in hand. They take you magical places, and help you see the world in a new light. For Hazel, they show her that sometimes words are plastic flowers. That sometimes parents are just as lost as you are. Most of all, that sometimes the only thing you can do is push forward. Especially when your best friend needs you.
If I don't stop here, I'll gush for ages. I really will. I loved everything about this book. I smiled, and I cried. I drank this down like a person who hasn't had anything to drink in years. There was something missing inside me, something that called me to read this book. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this is the type of book that I want to read to my someday children. I would love to wrap myself up in its pages and live there forever. This book is pure magic, and it settles right into its rightful spot on my favorite books of all time. show less
This wonderful modern retelling of “The Snow Queen,” (a fairy tale by author Hans Christian Andersen first published in 1845) is a touching and at times scary story about change and loss, and the challenging process of surviving them.
Hazel and Jack are each 11 years old, and have been best friends since they were six. Hazel feels an obligation to be there for Jack now that his mother is suffering from depression. After all, when Hazel’s parents got divorced, Jack tried to cheer up Hazel by giving her his most prized possession – a baseball signed by Minnesota Twin MVP Joe Mauer. He also is her only friend at the public school she goes to now. Her father will no longer pay for her to go to her private school where creativity was show more valued; in the public school, the emphases on rules and memorization are so different that Hazel has trouble adjusting. In sum, Hazel, adopted from India, never feels like she fits in anywhere with her different looks and different interests except when she is with Jack.
One day out on the playground, Jack gets injured by a piece of enchanted mirror that falls from the sky. It was made by a demonlike creature, and it turned Jack’s heart to ice. He begins to be mean to Hazel, and then he disappears; he has gone off to live with an icy white witch called The Snow Queen. Hazel doesn’t think about how Jack has changed; she only knows that her friend needs to be rescued. She takes a backpack with some emergency items and Jack’s baseball, and heads into the enchanted woods to find the Snow Queen and get Jack to come back home with her.
In the woods, Hazel must overcome not only the fear of the unknown that awaits her, but a bunch of threatening characters from other fairy tales in what the author, in an interview, called “a sort of dark Hans Christian Andersen theme park.” Hazel has to summon all her reserves of courage and determination to get through the woods, which she does, in the name of friendship. But all of this is only the prelude to the real battle: getting Jack to want to come home.
Discussion: Like all fairy tales, this one uses magic metaphorically so that the story can be read and understood on multiple levels. Hazel has already seen Jack is changing before the magic mirror affects him; he wants to hang out with other boys more, and he is becoming “scratchy and thick,” which is Hazel’s way of characterizing the changes in her friend. Indeed, even the witch warns her that someday Jack will be a man: “you will not even know him, and he will only think of you with a passing smile.” But Hazel understands that already there have been many Jacks and many Hazels: “And maybe she wasn’t going to be able to know all the Jacks that there would be. But all the Hazels that ever would be would have Jack in them, somewhere.”
This is not all she learns on her journey, which forces Hazel to grow up as well. Most of what she learns has to do with the hazards of wanting something for yourself, without thinking about others. There will always be a cost. And some times what you think is your “heart’s desire” turns out much differently than you expected. She also learns there are some things she can never understand, but she must adapt to them anyway, because they are part of the world.
For the most part I loved the updating from "The Snow Queen," except for one change. In the original, the boy’s heart is restored when the tears of the little girl fall onto his chest and penetrate his heart, melting the lumps of ice and consuming the splinters of the mirror. In this update, Hazel cries, but it is only when Jack takes the baseball and squeezes it that he recognizes Hazel and the breakthrough is made. I thought the original better answered the question of how Jack escaped the spell on him, while also reinforcing the ties between the two children.
Evaluation: Yet another book that makes the point “the world isn’t always what we can see.” This lovely recasting of a fairy tale is intended for middle grade and up, but might be scary for the younger readers in that category. show less
Hazel and Jack are each 11 years old, and have been best friends since they were six. Hazel feels an obligation to be there for Jack now that his mother is suffering from depression. After all, when Hazel’s parents got divorced, Jack tried to cheer up Hazel by giving her his most prized possession – a baseball signed by Minnesota Twin MVP Joe Mauer. He also is her only friend at the public school she goes to now. Her father will no longer pay for her to go to her private school where creativity was show more valued; in the public school, the emphases on rules and memorization are so different that Hazel has trouble adjusting. In sum, Hazel, adopted from India, never feels like she fits in anywhere with her different looks and different interests except when she is with Jack.
One day out on the playground, Jack gets injured by a piece of enchanted mirror that falls from the sky. It was made by a demonlike creature, and it turned Jack’s heart to ice. He begins to be mean to Hazel, and then he disappears; he has gone off to live with an icy white witch called The Snow Queen. Hazel doesn’t think about how Jack has changed; she only knows that her friend needs to be rescued. She takes a backpack with some emergency items and Jack’s baseball, and heads into the enchanted woods to find the Snow Queen and get Jack to come back home with her.
In the woods, Hazel must overcome not only the fear of the unknown that awaits her, but a bunch of threatening characters from other fairy tales in what the author, in an interview, called “a sort of dark Hans Christian Andersen theme park.” Hazel has to summon all her reserves of courage and determination to get through the woods, which she does, in the name of friendship. But all of this is only the prelude to the real battle: getting Jack to want to come home.
Discussion: Like all fairy tales, this one uses magic metaphorically so that the story can be read and understood on multiple levels. Hazel has already seen Jack is changing before the magic mirror affects him; he wants to hang out with other boys more, and he is becoming “scratchy and thick,” which is Hazel’s way of characterizing the changes in her friend. Indeed, even the witch warns her that someday Jack will be a man: “you will not even know him, and he will only think of you with a passing smile.” But Hazel understands that already there have been many Jacks and many Hazels: “And maybe she wasn’t going to be able to know all the Jacks that there would be. But all the Hazels that ever would be would have Jack in them, somewhere.”
This is not all she learns on her journey, which forces Hazel to grow up as well. Most of what she learns has to do with the hazards of wanting something for yourself, without thinking about others. There will always be a cost. And some times what you think is your “heart’s desire” turns out much differently than you expected. She also learns there are some things she can never understand, but she must adapt to them anyway, because they are part of the world.
For the most part I loved the updating from "The Snow Queen," except for one change. In the original, the boy’s heart is restored when the tears of the little girl fall onto his chest and penetrate his heart, melting the lumps of ice and consuming the splinters of the mirror. In this update, Hazel cries, but it is only when Jack takes the baseball and squeezes it that he recognizes Hazel and the breakthrough is made. I thought the original better answered the question of how Jack escaped the spell on him, while also reinforcing the ties between the two children.
Evaluation: Yet another book that makes the point “the world isn’t always what we can see.” This lovely recasting of a fairy tale is intended for middle grade and up, but might be scary for the younger readers in that category. show less
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- Canonical title
- Breadcrumbs
- Original title
- Breadcrumbs
- Original publication date
- 2011
- People/Characters
- Hazel Anderson; Jack Campbell
- First words
- It snowed right before Jack stopped talking to Hazel, fluffy white flakes big enough to show their crystal architecture, like perfect geometric poems. It was the sort of snow that transforms the world around it into a differ... (show all)ent kind of place.
- Quotations
- Hazel could not help put stop and stare at it- this, the biggest tree in the world. There was a flickering within the leaves, birds that made their universe inside the mammouth cloud of branches. She wondered if they even kne... (show all)w about the sky. p.174
Jack hesitated still, and Hazel wanted to say something comforting, to give him some bright plastic flowers of words, but Jack would see them for what they were. Jack knew how to see things. p.310 - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But at least it was a good story.
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