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Zusatztext "Anastasia herself is at her best here: headstrong! inventive! endearing! and irrepressible! though not above learning from her mistakes." Publishers Weekly Informationen zum Autor Lois Lowry is the author of more than fifty books for children and young adults, including the New York Times bestselling Giver Quartet and 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 Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, Number the Stars and The Giver . Klappentext Unfazed by her friends' decision to give up boys, Anastasia Krupnik answers a personal ad she finds in a magazine. When the special "he" decides he wants to meet her, Anastasia finds herself in quite a predicament--especially since her letters might have stretched the truth just a tiny bit... one “Mom, I need you to tell me what a word means.” Anastasia peered through the doorway into the studio, where her mother was working on some book illustrations. Mrs. Krupnik looked up from the table where she’d been leaning over a large sheet of paper covered with an intricate pen-and-ink drawing. “What word?” she asked. “Gwem,” Anastasia said. “Gwem?” Katherine Krupnik put her pen down and stared at Anastasia. “Never heard of it. Is it English?” Anastasia nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “But maybe the vowel is wrong. It could be gwim. Or gwam.” “Guam is an island in the Pacific. Are you doing geography homework?” Anastasia made a face. “No. Not Guam. I should have spelled it for you. It’s with a W. G-w-a-m. Or gwem, or gwim.” Her mother shook her head. “Did you look in the dictionary?” “It’s not there. But I know it’s a word because I read it in a magazine.” “Well,” said Mrs. Krupnik, “they made a mistake. Or maybe it’s a misprint. There’s no such word as gwem. Or gwam. Or gwim.” Anastasia frowned. “How about gwum? It could be gwum.” Mrs. Krupnik grinned. “Aha!” she said. “ Gwum. That one I know.” “What does it mean?” “Well, a person with a slight speech impediment? If that person is sad or depressed? He’s gwum. A wittle bit gwum and gwoomy.” “Ha-ha,” Anastasia said sarcastically. “ You’re no help.” “Sorry,” her mother said. “Take a look at this, as long as you’re here, would you?” She turned the paper in front of her so that Anastasia could see it. “Do the proportions look right to you? It seems to me that the guy’s arms are a little too long.” Anastasia walked over to the drawing table and peered at the sketch, a complicated one that showed a pudgy farmer leading a long line of cows through a meadow. “No,” she said, after a moment. “His arms look just fine to me. I don’t know how you do it, Mom. I can’t draw anything, but you just whip off these fabulous pictures with no trouble at all.” “What do you mean, ‘whip off’? I went to art school for four long years, Anastasia, learning how to do this. My parents spent thousands of dollars of tuition so that I could draw cows with silly grins. Look at this one, with the daffodil hanging out of her mouth—isn’t she cute?” Her mother pointed to the cow, and Anastasia nodded. “But I always have trouble drawing people, ” her mother said with a sigh. “Darn it. All those years of life class—” “I gotta go, Mom,” Anastasia said quickly. “I’m sorry I interrupted you. His arms are just fine, really.” She fled, closing the door to the studio behind her. Anastasia hated it when her mother mentioned life class. Life class was a terrible thing they did in ...
