See You Around, Sam! (Sam Krupnik) [Hardcover]

Lois Lowry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 1996 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: Sam Krupnik

Sam Krupnik, mad at his mother because she won't let him wear his newly acquired plastic fangs in the house, decides to run away.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sam (Anastasia's little brother) is forbidden to wear his plastic fangs in the house and attempts to run away to Alaska, where the walruses will surely accept his oral protrusions. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Grade 1-5?Anastasia's younger brother Sam's side of the story is continued in this latest volume of the Krupnik family saga. When his normally understanding mother exhibits an unreasonably negative reaction to his plastic vampire mouthpiece (a result of the fangphobia she developed while watching that Tom Cruise movie), Sam decides his only recourse is to run away to Alaska. (Walrus tusks are commonplace, so fangs shouldn't cause a stir there.) The strengths of this series have always been its cast of multi-dimensional, quirky, but very believable characters and their humorous, astute observations. On his travels, Sam visits with familiar neighbors, Gertrude Stein and Mrs. Sheehan, who have been apprised of his plans through telephone contact with Mrs. Krupnik, and he has a genuine heart-to-heart talk with his big sister. Added to the panoply of personalities are a letter carrier who memorizes zip codes and makes pasta sculptures in his spare time and a neighbor who sports Sam around on his wheelchair but can't give up smoking. True to the structure of the other books, tension and events build to a climactic final scene in which all the characters, even minor ones, play a significant role and everyone realizes that "It's a very grown-up thing to change your mind." This is a perfect choice for introducing young listeners to chapter books as common threads are carried throughout, and both humor and pathos are abundant. Long-time friends of the Krupniks will sink their teeth into this latest installment with relish. Fangs alot, Lois Lowry!?Starr LaTronica, Four County Library System, Vestal, NY
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (October 28, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395816645
• ISBN-13: 978-0395816646
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #779,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader.s Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association.s Children.s Book Award. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com

author interview
A CONVERSATION WITH LOIS LOWRY ABOUT THE GIVER

Q. When did you know you wanted to become a writer?

A. I cannot remember ever not wanting to be a writer.

Q. What inspired you to write The Giver?

A. Kids always ask what inspired me to write a particular book or how did I get an idea for a particular book, and often it's very easy to answer that because books like the Anastasia books come from a specific thing; some little event triggers an idea. But a book like The Giver is a much more complicated book, and therefore it comes from much more complicated places--and many of them are probably things that I don't even recognize myself anymore, if I ever did. So it's not an easy question to answer.

I will say that the whole concept of memory is one that interests me a great deal. I'm not sure why that is, but I've always been fascinated by the thought of what memory is and what it does and how it works and what we learn from it. And so I think probably that interest of my own and that particular subject was the origin, one of many, of The Giver.

Q. How did you decide what Jonas should take on his journey?

A. Why does Jonas take what he does on his journey? He doesn't have much time when he sets out. He originally plans to make the trip farther along in time, and he plans to prepare for it better. But then, because of circumstances, he has to set out in a very hasty fashion. So what he chooses is out of necessity. He takes food because he needs to survive. He takes the bicycle because he needs to hurry and the bike is faster than legs. And he takes the baby because he is going out to create a future. And babies always represent the future in the same way children represent the future to adults. And so Jonas takes the baby so the baby's life will be saved, but he takes the baby also in order to begin again with a new life.

Q. When you wrote the ending, were you afraid some readers would want more details or did you want to leave the ending open to individual interpretation?

A. Many kids want a more specific ending to The Giver. Some write, or ask me when they see me, to spell it out exactly. And I don't do that. And the reason is because The Giver is many things to many different people. People bring to it their own complicated beliefs and hopes and dreams and fears and all of that. So I don't want to put my own feelings into it, my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own endings in their minds.

Q. Is it an optimistic ending? Does Jonas survive?

A. I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there with its lights on and music is playing? So I'm always kind of surprised and disappointed when some people tell me that they think the boy and the baby just die. I don't think they die. What form their new life takes is something I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending. I think they're out there somewhere and I think that their life has changed and their life is happy, and I would like to think that's true for the people they left behind as well.

Q. In what way is your book Gathering Blue a companion to The Giver?

A. Gathering Blue postulates a world of the future, as The Giver does. I simply created a different kind of world, one that had regressed instead of leaping forward technologically as the world of The Giver has. It was fascinating to explore the savagery of such a world. I began to feel that maybe it coexisted with Jonas's world . . . and that therefore Jonas could be a part of it in a tangential way. So there is a reference to a boy with light eyes at the end of Gathering Blue. He can be Jonas or not, as you wish.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The writing is wonderful but the characters are annoying!, May 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: See You Around, Sam! (Sam Krupnik) (Hardcover)

Lois Lowry is one of the best writers for children around, but I find Sam to be one of the most annoying characters around. He is simply too precocious to be at all believable, as was his sister Anastasia before him! In fact, all the neighbors are really too clever, interesting, well educated and understanding to ring too true to me. Maybe there really is a neighborhood like Sam's someplace, but I doubt it. That said, I always read each new Lowry book and do find myself enjoying them, and I'm sure most readers would too.

4.0 out of 5 stars Sam: more ordinary, only a little less fun, April 1, 2011

By 

E. S. Charpentier (Brainerd, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: See You Around, Sam! (Sam Krupnik) (Paperback)

Sam decides to run away to Alaska because his mother won't let him wear plastic fangs in the house. Everyone in the neighborhood conspires to change his mind. I don't know why, but this book wasn't as fun as the previous books about Sam. He seemed less like a precocious genius and more like an ordinary little boy. I suppose as Sam grows up, he'll continue to be even less remarkable.

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Books I've Read, August 17, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: See You Around, Sam! (Sam Krupnik) (Paperback)

See You Around Sam is about a boy named Sam who almost runs away from home to Alaska. The story takes place in a small country town in the Fall of the 1950's. In the end, Sam goes home to see his family and friends because misses them.