Attaboy, Sam! (Sam Krupnik)

Sam Krupnik is at it again. This time he wants to make a special surprise perfume for his mother's birthday. First he has to collect his mother's favorite smells in Ziploc bags. He uses an old grape juice bottle to hold everything from chicken soup to his father's pipe to a poop-smelling tissue from a baby's room.

Sam stashes all the smells in his toybox and won't let his mother into his room. It's really starting to stink in there. Still, Sam can't wait for his mother to see and smell her birthday surprise. But Mrs. Krupnik isn't the only one who's in for a surprise.

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.