Lunchbox Lit: The Stories We Carry

The other day my daughter asked if she could take my old thermos in her lunch. And when I say old, I mean old -- I got it in first grade. Here it is:

 And this is what I carried it in:

 

I posted the pics on Facebook, and some friends commented on what THEY carried -- Star Trek, Emergency, Scooby Doy, Hardy Boys. It occurred to me that the lunchboxes they carried held more than lunch -- they carried stories that those kids chose then, and that the writers were still carrying in the stories they wrote and read. Maybe that's a stretch, but we're all the sum of our influences. 

So what does my lunch kit say about me? I like to mix genre. I write about everyday childhood, with an imaginative twist. And I still can't resist a princess or a happy ending.


Who was on your lunchbox? What does it say about you then and now? What stories did you carry?


About Kell Andrews:  Kell Andrews writes picture books and middle grade novels. Deadwood, her middle-grade contemporary fantasy about a cursed tree, comes out from Spencer Hill Middle Grade in June 2014.