Author Description

Developed from a series of articles that touched thousands of readers and won journalist Tom Hallman the Pulitzer Prize, Sam is the true story about fitting in, medical miracles-and the inner strength of one courageous boy. Sam Lightner was born with a rare life-threatening facial disfigurement. For years, doctors refused to operate on him-until a team of surgeons finally decided to undertake a risky, thirteen-hour procedure. But after Sam begins his freshman year of high school, complications arise, leaving him comatose and his family hopeless. But one doctor-pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby-refuses to give up. She stays by his side, until he moves a finger, a foot, and then finally rebuilds his life... Author Biography: Tom Hallman, Jr., won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for a series of articles about Sam Lightner that was published in the Oregonion. Hallman, who had been a Pulitzer finalist twice before, has also received multiple American Society of Newspaper Editors awards, a Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, a National Headliner Award, and a Nixon National Writing Award. A reporter for more than twenty-five years, Hallman has been at the Oregonian since 1980.