Sam and the Moon Queen (Puffin Book) - Softcover

James Cross Giblin is the author of more than 20 critically acclaimed books for young people. His most recent book for Clarion, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, received the Robert F. Sibert Award for Informational Books. Mr. Giblin lives in New York City.

Sam, a 13 year old who lives with his widowed mother and her waitress friend in a tiny New York City apartment, finds a bedraggled girl and her injured dog in the basement of their building. He calls the girl, who won't tell him her real name, December. December alludes briefly to her lost parents and a string of abusive foster homes and takes Sam on a tour of her home in the streets. There he meets a strange woman named Annie, who seems to watch out for December, as well as other street people, distinctive and sad, and begins to learn of the loose protective community they have made for themselves in the park. Then Annie disappears, leaving instructions for Sam to take care of December, and violence rips through the homeless people's sheltered place. Sam's mother's lottery win tempts readers to believe that a Cinderella ending will occur, but provides just another twist before a more believable, less clearly resolved ending closes the story. While not as lyrically written as Holman's Secret City , USA (1990) or Slake's Limbo (1974, both Scribners), this is a readable and engaging portrait of several courageous people who carve out a kind of life on city streets. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie
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