Jonathon Scott Fuqua’s work of fiction has already proven itself as a literary achievement by earning several influential honors, including the prestigious ALA 2000 Alex award. Evoking a child’s struggle to triumph over fear and despair, it explores the complex issues of race and class in the "fading light" of Baltimore. This debut novel will strike as powerful a chord with young readers as it has with adults. The protagonist, eleven-year-old Sam Webber, has been called "Little Sam" his whole life. But now Big Sam has disappeared, perhaps for good. Without his dad, Little Sam is just plain "Samuel"—and lonely. When he and his mom have to move from their comfortable Baltimore home to a rough inner-city neighborhood, he has plenty to be afraid of: the depression that seems to be engulfing his mother, the taunts of a middle-school bully, his own grief, and bouts of nausea and hyperventilation. But when Greely, the janitor at his school, strikes up an unlikely friendship, Sam begins to see his life—like the varied row houses of his new neighborhood—in a gentler light. Will a surer, stronger Sam Webber emerge from the shadows? Read Less