Breadcrumbs

Published in 2011, Anne Ursu’s Breadcrumbs is a middle grade fantasy novel, fairy tale retelling, and coming-of-age story. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” the novel follows Hazel, a young girl whose life changes when her best friend, Jack, disappears into the woods with a mysterious woman made of ice. Determined to save Jack, Hazel embarks on a quest that takes her into a world where fairy tales are not just stories but dangerous realities. As she navigates a series of magical and treacherous encounters, Hazel learns about bravery, sacrifice, and the bittersweet nature of growing up. The novel explores themes of identity, friendship, and divorce and was selected as a Publishers Weekly Best Book and an NPR Backseat Book Club Pick. 

This guide is based on the 2011 HarperCollins e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of mental illness, child abuse, and neglect.

Plot Summary

Hazel Anderson lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her mother. After her parents’ divorce over the summer, she transfers to another school due to financial reasons. Hazel struggles to connect with her new fifth-grade peers, but she has a best friend named Jack Campbell, who shares her love of inventing imaginative games and stories. When Jack learns that Hazel’s parents are going through a divorce, he gives her his most cherished possession, a baseball autographed by Joe Mauer. One snowy day, Hazel’s mother arranges a playdate for her and Adelaide Briggs, a friend whom she hasn’t seen in two years. Adelaide and her uncle, a screenwriter named Martin, listen encouragingly as Hazel improvises a story about a Snow Queen who lures children away and traps them in snow globes.

The next day is a snow day, and Hazel and Jack visit the abandoned house that they secretly use as a fort. Jack’s mother struggles with depression, which Jack tries to process through his drawings. When the children return to school the following day, Hazel feels upset that Jack has befriended Tyler and Bobby, the boys who bully her. A piece of glass falls into Jack’s left eye, and his father takes him to the emergency room. When Tyler and Bobby accuse Hazel of being responsible for Jack’s injury, she throws her pencil case at Tyler and hides in the girl’s locker room for the remainder of the school day. Hazel’s mother admonishes her to behave more maturely and takes her home. When Hazel checks on Jack, he insults her interest in superheroes and goes outside to play with Tyler and Bobby. The next day at recess, Hazel apologizes to Jack and Tyler, but Jack acts as though he’s forgotten that they’re best friends.

The narrator reveals that the piece of glass that fell into Jack’s eye was part of an evil magical mirror created by a demonic figure named Mal, and a witch with the power to move between snowy worlds witnessed the mirror fragment strike him. The witch finds Jack when he’s sledding alone, and she lures him away by promising to show him a magical world full of secret knowledge and power. Jack boards her sleigh, which is drawn by immense white wolves. As they ride to her palace, the witch gives Jack two kisses, which make all of his emotions and sensations feel like a distant memory.

On Saturday, Hazel visits Adelaide and asks Uncle Martin why someone’s personality might undergo a sudden and complete change. He suggests several supernatural possibilities and counsels her that love and goodness are the way to transform the person back. On Monday, Jack is absent from school, and his parents tell Hazel that he’s gone to stay with his aunt. She finds their behavior odd but doesn’t have another explanation for his disappearance. The next day, Hazel meets with the school’s guidance counselor, and she feels diminished by his attempts to understand her struggles with mood and attention.

A few days later, a frightened Tyler tells Hazel that he saw a witch take Jack into the woods, knowing that the imaginative girl is the only person who might believe him. Hazel gathers a compass, a flashlight, and the autographed baseball Jack gave her. When she steps into the woods, she finds herself transported to a magical forest. She discovers a path that she believes will take her to the witch, but turns back when a wolf bars the way. Hazel finds three women spinning thread who urge her to go home when she says that she’s looking for the witch who kidnapped her friend.

A shapeshifter attacks Hazel, and a boy named Ben takes her to safety. Like Hazel, Ben is from the real world. He and his sister ran away from home to escape their abusive father. He remains in the woods now because a couple transformed his sister into a magical bird. He tells Hazel how to find the witch’s palace and warns her not to accept any of the tempting gifts the witch offers her. Hazel travels to a bustling marketplace, where a wizard casts a spell on her that impairs her judgment. Lucas and Nina, a couple, take her to their cottage, and Hazel feels like she belongs there. In the middle of the night, Hazel enters the couple’s garden and discovers that the flowers used to be girls. Each of the girls entered the woods because she was fleeing a problem in her old life, and Nina and Lucas transformed them in an attempt to spare them from suffering. Although Nina pleads with Hazel to stay, she resumes her journey because she’s determined to save Jack and return to her mother.

Hazel encounters the titular character of “The Little Match Girl.” Overwhelmed with sympathy and sorrow, Hazel gives the girl her jacket and half of her remaining food. Hazel staggers onward until she reaches an impenetrable wall of snow and falls into despair. Numbly, Hazel reaches the witch’s palace. The white witch welcomes her inside, and Hazel remembers that she has come to rescue her friend. The witch explains that the children are free to leave if they do so of their own choosing. She warns Hazel that the world outside is cruel and that Jack will eventually grow apart from her if she manages to convince him to leave.

The white witch gives Jack puzzle pieces made of ice and tells him that she will grant his heart’s desire if he can use them to spell out the word “Eternity.” Jack is seated on a lake covered in floating pieces of ice, and Hazel makes the slow and difficult trek to reach him. At first, Jack doesn’t remember her, but his memories return when she gives him the Joe Mauer baseball. Hazel and Jack make the perilous trek across the frozen lake, exit the witch’s domain, and return home. Although Hazel isn’t certain whether her friendship with Jack will go back to normal, she knows that whatever life has in store for them is better than anything they could find in the woods.