SEE YOU AROUND, SAM!
by Lois Lowry & illustrated by Diane de Groat
Sam Krupnik is almost five, and he's running away to Sleetmute, Alaska. Yes, Anastasia's brother has sadly decided to leave because his mother won't let him wear his plastic fangs in the house (she has fangphobia). He plans to lie around in piles with the walruses, who don't mind fangs. Before he can go, he wants to visit each of his neighbors to say goodbye. Lowry (Attaboy, Sam!, 1992, etc.) gives readers a good look at the workings of the mind of an endearing, ordinary child. Sam's small problems are not in any way important, but Sam believes they are—and, as conveyed through such powerfully sympathetic writing, that is enough. The result is foregone, but readers will inhale every word, through the simple force of Sam's personality. With de Groat's capable black- and-white illustrations in every chapter, this is a delight. (Fiction. 7-12)