Andrew Jessup

The loss of a best friend is nothing short of catastrophe, and when Andrew Jessup moves away, his former next-door neighbor feels shattered. Though Hilton doesn't disclose the name of the spectacled protagonist-in-mourning who narrates here, her constant replaying of her memories of good times shared with Andrew Jessup serves more than sufficiently as introduction. Touchingly, she keeps incessant watch over what has become an abandoned house. The day the moving van arrives, bearing the goods and personage of one Madeleine Havenblower, things start looking up. The familiar litany of Andrew Jessup's name recedes with the dawning of the era of Madeleine Havenblower, and Andrew advances to a second but no less important category . . . ``best faraway friend. '' Wilcox's sketchy watercolor and pen and ink cartoons convey a lighthearted tenor, balancing the quasi-serious mood of the text very well. Ages 4-7. (Aug.)