Nightbooks

Food acquires figurative significance throughout the text and functions as a motif that illuminates The Value of Friendship. Natacha controls her captives’ food supply, restricting them to basic items like oatmeal and peanut butter while she enjoys sumptuous meals prepared by Yasmin. This dynamic demonstrates how superior she feels: She does not look on the children as equals, and the food restrictions she places on them confirm this. Furthermore, despite Yasmin’s initial insistence that she doesn’t want friends anymore, she reveals her soft heart and compassion for Alex by the fact that she tells him how to survive and prepares food for him.

Likewise, Alex’s first overtures of friendship to Lenore consist of his offering her handfuls of Froot Loops, his favorite cereal. Despite the limited supply of this treat, Alex offers some to Lenore on multiple occasions, a kindness she is unused to and which persuades her to shift her loyalty from Natacha to the children. Offering Froot Loops to Lenore signals that Alex sees her as a potential friend, an equal, rather than as an underling whose comfort is irrelevant.

Natacha eventually shares stew that she prepared with Alex when she offers him the chance to be her friend rather than her captive.