AS GOOD AS BREAD

Mario "Ari" D’Auria, the impulsive Italian kid with ADHD, has been expelled from eighth grade at Harbor Bay Day School for saying something stupid, something awful, something he immediately regrets. He would never act on these words—his ADHD just blurted them. And he just wants to take them back. 

Everyone at school knows Ari’s the kid with the volcano mouth whose Italian Nonna packs him the most delicious homemade lunches, and his immigrant dad maintains the golf course across the street. He’s the one without a mom. A harmless loner. An easy target. But after Ari is goaded by his ex-best friend into saying he’ll shoot up their elite, private school, the community vilifies him, rumors escalate, board members infiltrate, and (harmless or not) Ari must be expelled. 

To help suppress the regret that consumes him, Ari escapes into the classical myths he fell in love with during Latin class. He feels connected to Asterion, the Minotaur, and Medusa, the Gorgon, and much like these tragic characters, Ari is not the monster he’s now portrayed as. Ari has always had kindness in his heart. He’s always been a good kid. Like Nonna says, Lui è buono come il pane. ~ He is as good as bread. But outside Ari's family, few see the good in him.

Set on the exclusive barrier island of one-percenter South Florida, where cancel culture thrives, and even Nonna’s homemade Sunday sauce cannot ease Ari’s gripping shame, As Good As Bread is a young adult novel in verse (with pinches of prose) offering readers an authentic dish of adolescent neurodivergence in an unforgiving world.

This book is for anyone who’s ever made a mistake and the extreme lows that linger in the wake. It's about the hope you find in the unconditional bonds among family beyond the Sunday dinner table—when you need them most.