Friday, October 30, 2020

Bye-Bye, Blue Creek by Andrew Smith

Bye-Bye, Blue Creek is the latest middle grade novel from the incomparable Andrew Smith.  This is the sequel to The Size of the Truth, his first novel in the Sam Abernathy series.  It is such a fun novel about growing up and letting go.  It is about holding on to those things that are most important to us, while at the same time accepting what the future holds.  Sam is such an enjoyable character and this story about his last days before starting high school is a beautiful way to inform the reader about this boy we encountered years before.  

We first met Sam in Smith's YA novel Stand Off.  In this newest story, Sam is getting ready to leave his small Texas town of Blue Creek and head to school in Pine Mountain, Oregon.  As a 12 year old incoming freshman, this is a pretty scary prospect.  Sam is preparing to say goodbye to all that he has ever known: his family, his friends, this quirky little town.  And as he embarks on a scary little adventure in his last days in Blue Creek, Sam learns that saying goodbye doesn't mean it's the end.  In fact, this is just the beginning of a wonderful adventure to come. 

From Amazon

Sam Abernathy prepares to leave home for the first time in this charming follow-up to award-winning author Andrew Smith’s The Size of Truth.

Vampires have just moved in to the haunted house next door.

All twelve-year-old Sam Abernathy wanted to do was make the most of his last few weeks in Blue Creek before he has to say goodbye. Goodbye to the well he fell in eight years ago; goodbye to cooking at Lily Putt’s snack bar; goodbye to his overdramatic best friend, Karim; goodbye to unsweetened iced tea at Colonel Jenkins’s Diner every Saturday with Bahar (who he does not have a crush on); goodbye to his old life.

But the arrival of the Monster People throws a wrench into his plans. Things only get worse when the new family hires Bahar to babysit their child, Boris, who is almost certainly a cannibal. And then—scariest of all—they employ Sam’s catering services. He can’t possibly say no.

If he doesn’t survive the summer, Sam might not have to say bye-bye to Blue Creek at all.

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