Mementos from her mother's students help a young girl to grieve in a middle-grade novel by award-winning author Amy Hest. Eight-year-old Annie lives in a sunny apartment in Manhattan with her father, Professor Rossi. Life would be pretty good if only Annie didn't so achingly miss her mother. When Mrs. Rossi died suddenly, she left not only Annie but also a classfull of students — who pour out their hearts in a scrapbook Annie will treasure forever. With tenderness and humor, Amy Hest reveals the struggles of a father and daughter as they forge a new life together. Grade 3–5—After her mother dies, eight-year-old Annie Rossi does her best to cope, assisted by Remembering Mrs. Rossi , a book of memories compiled by her mother's sixth-grade students. During the difficult year that follows, her dad forgets to buy her brand of cereal, doesn't remind her to wear her boots, mismatches her pajamas, and doesn't understand that they should be the first to make footprints in the snow. Annie's patterns of belonging have been disrupted, but as she and her father search for ways to "keep Mommy close…and let her go…and keep her close again," they take comfort from the sixth graders' book, share memories with one another, and begin to forge new rituals. Hest avoids delving into grief, focusing instead on Annie's frustrations with changes at home, at school, and in their summer beach community. Maione's soft pencil drawings capture the child's emotions. Readers will recognize their own feelings of frustration and confusion in the protagonist and admire her attempts to convince her father to get a dog. The book by Mrs. Rossi's students is reproduced at the end of the story. Although some of the entries seem naive for sixth graders, this feature gives readers an opportunity to share their memories of their teacher. This gentle story that captures one third grader's year reinforces the power of journaling in navigating through life's changes.— Linda Ward-Callaghan, Joliet Public Library, IL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Eight-year-old Annie and her father are devastated by Mom's sudden death. As they go about their usual activities, almost everything reminds them of their loss. They receive a scrapbook created by the students in Mom's sixth-grade class, celebrate Daddy's birthday and spend a day visiting his university classes, and vacation at the beach. In the hands of a less capable author, the story might have turned maudlin, but Hest imbues her characters with warmth, humor, and realistic imperfections. Yes, they feel sad, but there are good times as well; Annie is not above manipulating her father to try and get him to buy a dog, and Daddy sometimes shuts Annie out as he writes in his private journal. Maione's ink sketches highlight the tender affections between the two as they struggle to move forward. Appended are the scrapbook entries created by Mrs. Rossi's students, which bring the woman to life from an entirely different perspective. Kay Weisman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Hest handles a delicate subject with compassion and understanding. —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Amy Hest  is a three-time winner of the Christopher Medal and winner of the  Boston Globe-Horn Book  Award. She lives in New York City. Heather Maione  has illustrated several books for children. She lives on Long Island, New York. MEETING ANNIE ROSSI, AGE 8 Once upon a time in New York City, there was a tall brick building on a wide winding street called Riverside Drive. Forty-five families lived there in forty-five apartments on fifteen floors. They had a flower garden on the roof, and in the basement, a bright yellow room with six washing machines. The elevator was noisy and slow, but the lobby was grand - cool white marble and that big marble staircase in the middle. All in all, it was a fine apartment house, and if you were lucky enough to live there, you had your very own park right across the street. In that building, at that time, was a family called Rossi. Their house was on the tenth floor - apartment 10B - and sunlight filled the rooms. Sometimes at night the moon showed up, just like that, and they stood at the windows watching the moon. . . . The front door was red. The living room was also painted red, and everywhere you looked were family photos. And books, the place was bursting with books. Mrs. Rossi knew a lot about books. Especially sixth-grade books. And fifth-grade books. Mrs. Rossi was a sixth-grade teacher, and some years a fifth-grade teacher, at the Louis Armstrong School. She had soft green eyes and dark wavy hair, and she was always dashing off to the New York Public Library, hauling books back and forth in her wagon. Professor Rossi was a teacher, too, at Columbia University, a very big school that was just up the hill, a five-minute walk to Broadway. Professor Rossi had curly hair and extra-long feet, and he