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Bricks For Breakfast
After winning a competition to design a new cereal and consuming multiple bowls of it while shooting a television commercial, cereal-loving Stephen's tastes change.
52 pages, Library Binding
First published May 6, 2004
19 people want to read
About the author
Julia Donaldson
1,180 books1,925 followersGrowing up
I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).
Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes.
I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.
Busking and books
Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.
The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children’s television. I became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window-cleaning and horrible smells. “We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin” was a typical request from the BBC.
I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs.
One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.
My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes.
I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.
Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers.
When I’m not writing I am often performing, at book festivals and in theatres. I really enjoy getting the children in the audience to help me act out the stories and sing the songs. When Malcolm can take time off from the hospital he and his guitar come too. and it feels as if we’ve come full circle - back to busking.
I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).
Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes.
I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.
Busking and books
Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.
The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children’s television. I became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window-cleaning and horrible smells. “We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin” was a typical request from the BBC.
I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs.
One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading.
My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes.
I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.
Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers.
When I’m not writing I am often performing, at book festivals and in theatres. I really enjoy getting the children in the audience to help me act out the stories and sing the songs. When Malcolm can take time off from the hospital he and his guitar come too. and it feels as if we’ve come full circle - back to busking.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 11, 2025
Engagingly, expressively illustrated by Phillippe Dupasquier with many of colourful cartoon-like pictures full of motion and visual humour for recently independent readers and especially young boys (from about the age of six to eight) to look at, to pore over, to enjoy (and with Dupasquier's artwork also both reflecting and equally so nicely expanding on the author's, on Julia Donaldson's words), in Bricks For Breakfast (2004) Donaldson's simple and fun story focuses on young Stephen Rice who consumes breakfast cereal for breakfast, lunch, supper and with his single mother's steady, with her full-time job at the Sunfield cereal company meaning that her son always has enough both store-bought cereal with their visually enticing boxes (with coupons, cartoons etc. on the outside and toys, trading cards and such inside of the boxes, hidden amongst the diverse cereal types) and also slightly misshapen chocolate cereal pieces that his mother is allowed to take home from Sunfield for free in large bags (which makes my inner child chuckle with appreciation although adult I do find Stephen's highly limited diet in Bricks for Breakfast slightly concerning and how at the end of Bricks for Breakfast Stephen Rice moves on from only eating cereal to now only eating pasta, but yes, that he still has a very much limited and thus also lacking in nutrition completely carbohydrate and starch diet, but perhaps this is I being rather overly critical).
And unfortunately for Stephen Rice, when his mother suddenly becomes unemployed in Bricks for Breakfast as Julia Donaldson has Sunfield close the plant where she works, there are suddenly not only no more free cereal off-cuts but also no more store-bought cereal either since with no job, all that Ms. Rice is able to afford is plain oatmeal (for porridge) and which Stephen does not at all enjoy and eats under protest (until Stephen enters a sponsored by Sunfield competition to design his own breakfast cereal, comes up with the award winning Brick-a-Breck and receives a lifetime supply as his reward). But after Stephen Rice is hired by Sunfield to star in a commercial advertising Brick-a-Breck, after fourteen takes are needed and Stephen starts feeling massively ill from a surfeit of cereal needing to be eaten over and over again, by the end of Bricks for Breakfast, although Sunfield reopens their shuttered plant (due to the success of in particular Brick-a-Breck) and Stephen's mother is rehired, Stephen himself is now so tired of cereal and also so grossed out by cereal in general that his tastes have changed and he now only eats pasta (and that his lifetime supply of Brick-a-Breck is thus also not being eaten and not being appreciated anymore).
Bricks for Breakfast and the combination of Julia Donaldson's text and Phillippe Dupasquier pictures thus presents a nicely basic but also not too simplistic text and is ideal for young children who are just building their confidence regarding reading independently, is simple and fun, but might also engender interesting discussions regarding one's diet (for example if Stephen Rice should really only be eating cereal and later only pasta day in and day out), how a working mother's sudden unemployment really changes things or at least can do so and that starring in a food commercial with many takes is not really all that glamorous, can be majorly difficult, exhausting and might also make the participants end up no longer liking, no longer wanting to eat the food item or items being advertised (like is the case with Stephen Rice in Bricks for Breakfast as the commercial for Brick-a-Breck with its fourteen takes makes him physically ill and then no longer even interested in eating Brick-a-Breck or in fact any cereal, period).
And unfortunately for Stephen Rice, when his mother suddenly becomes unemployed in Bricks for Breakfast as Julia Donaldson has Sunfield close the plant where she works, there are suddenly not only no more free cereal off-cuts but also no more store-bought cereal either since with no job, all that Ms. Rice is able to afford is plain oatmeal (for porridge) and which Stephen does not at all enjoy and eats under protest (until Stephen enters a sponsored by Sunfield competition to design his own breakfast cereal, comes up with the award winning Brick-a-Breck and receives a lifetime supply as his reward). But after Stephen Rice is hired by Sunfield to star in a commercial advertising Brick-a-Breck, after fourteen takes are needed and Stephen starts feeling massively ill from a surfeit of cereal needing to be eaten over and over again, by the end of Bricks for Breakfast, although Sunfield reopens their shuttered plant (due to the success of in particular Brick-a-Breck) and Stephen's mother is rehired, Stephen himself is now so tired of cereal and also so grossed out by cereal in general that his tastes have changed and he now only eats pasta (and that his lifetime supply of Brick-a-Breck is thus also not being eaten and not being appreciated anymore).
Bricks for Breakfast and the combination of Julia Donaldson's text and Phillippe Dupasquier pictures thus presents a nicely basic but also not too simplistic text and is ideal for young children who are just building their confidence regarding reading independently, is simple and fun, but might also engender interesting discussions regarding one's diet (for example if Stephen Rice should really only be eating cereal and later only pasta day in and day out), how a working mother's sudden unemployment really changes things or at least can do so and that starring in a food commercial with many takes is not really all that glamorous, can be majorly difficult, exhausting and might also make the participants end up no longer liking, no longer wanting to eat the food item or items being advertised (like is the case with Stephen Rice in Bricks for Breakfast as the commercial for Brick-a-Breck with its fourteen takes makes him physically ill and then no longer even interested in eating Brick-a-Breck or in fact any cereal, period).
September 4, 2011
A well illustrated children's novel containing plenty of colourful images for young readers to look at. Bricks For Breakfast follows the story of Stephen Rice who loves eating bowls of breakfast cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. While eating all this cereal Stephen also loves to read the cereal boxes, collect the free gifts in the boxes and save any coupons. That is untill his mum loses her job and the only way he can get to read his much loved cereal packets is to go around to friends houses and eat their cereal so he can read their boxes. Stephen enters a competition to design his own breakfast cereal and comes up with the name Brick-a-Breck. He soon realises that having a much talked about breakfast cereal comes with some unexpected results!
A nice and easy going story to read with young children and ideal for those who are just building their confidence of reading alone. Most children are able to relate to Stephens love of breakfast cereal, (especially the boys)! A great novel to get the children talking!
A nice and easy going story to read with young children and ideal for those who are just building their confidence of reading alone. Most children are able to relate to Stephens love of breakfast cereal, (especially the boys)! A great novel to get the children talking!
October 22, 2013
Daughter said it has vomit in it so she stopped reading, lol. She said it was pretty good, otherwise.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews