by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 13, 2010

In 1999, Toni Morrison began working on rhyming children's book. She co-authored "The Big Box" with her son Slade, though her son was nine years old when he wrote the story, according to the book's jacket, "and let his mother impose the rhyme." As a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Morrison knew a dramatic story when she saw it.  And artist Giselle Potter contributed some very interesting illustrations.

"Patty and Mickey and Liza Sue live in a big brown box.
It has carpets and curtains and beanbag chairs, and the door has three big locks."

The poem is peremptory and playful, so Potter matches it with some abstract drawings that resemble a flat-perspective collage. But she's hinting at something Morrison reveals in the text: the three children have never left their box.  Though they enjoy all their toys, and the Christmas gifts, the children "can't handle their freedom" - at least, according to the adults around them. For example, Patty misbehaves in school, singing and talking in the classroom and spoiling the pledge of allegiance.

In a dramatic confrontation, Patty hangs her head, but then counters with a list of rules that she does obey - like eating her vegetables and washing her neck. She says that she'd like "to hang on to my freedom," but questions how free that really is if they're already limiting the way she can use it. Morrison shows the adults failing to understand, and Patty's concerns are ultimately met with a very stark response.

"So they gave little Patty an understanding hug
And put her in a big brown box.
It has carpets and curtains and beanbag chairs
But the door has three big locks."

The box is pretty, Morrison reminds us, and has lots of toys and furniture. "But the door only opens one way." And Mickey was sent there for a similar list of offenses - having too much fun in the streets all day, which "made the grown-ups nervous." Mickey lives in the city, but apparently Liza lives on a farm. While she performed her chores admirably, she refused to collect the eggs from the chickens, and removed the bit from the horse's mouth.

Unfortunately, there's no happy ending, but maybe that's the point. Morrison leaves us concerned for the children in the box - and maybe also concerned for ourselves. And not just for three characters in a children's storybook, but for unfree children everywhere.

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