AS GOOD AS BREAD

Mario "Ari" D'Auria, the impulsive Italian kid with ADHD, has been expelled from eighth grade at Bay Harbor 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 whose 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. He's a harmless loner, and since he can't control his volcano-mouth eruptions, an easy target. After Ari is goaded by his ex-best friend into saying he'll shoot up the school, the community vilifies him, rumors escalate, board members infiltrate, and (harmless or not) Ari must be expelled. 

To help alleviate the regret that consumes him, Ari escapes into the classical mythology he fell in love with in Latin, his favorite class. He finds himself relating to Asterion the Minotaur and Medusa the Gorgon, and like these tragic characters, Ari is not simply the monster everyone now sees him as. He's 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, only 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 alleviate 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 for any kid who’s ever made a mistake, the extreme lows that linger in the wake, and the unconditional bonds among family beyond the Sunday dinner table—when you need them most.