SOLVED. Juvenile - Little girl whose idiot parents won't let her visit her dying brother in the hospital [s]

[Kinsey]

I probably read this YA book in the early 80s. A little girl (probably no older than 12) learns that her little brother is sick and in the hospital. Although her parents never tell her, she quickly figures out that he is dying.

When she goes to visit him in the hospital, he starts saying something to her but doesn't have the strength to finish his sentence. She frantically tries to get him to finish it, but then her parents start dragging her out of the room, which makes her even more frantic and causes a huge scene. The parents tell her that she can't visit him again while he is in the hospital. Since she knows he will soon be dead, she realizes this means she will never be able to see him again.

At one point she says to her mother, "But I want to see him before..." and then can't finish. Her clueless mother even asks, "Before what?", but the girl makes up an answer.

Eventually the little girl has the perfectly reasonable idea to just sit down with her parents and calmly and maturely tell them that she won't make another scene if they will only let her see her brother once more. They respond that they've already been through all that with her, and they just don't think she's old enough.

Finally, at the end of the book, she is able to sneak into her brother's hospital room, only to find that he has just passed away (which is why no one is there). There is kind of an odd scene then when she talks to him for awhile and even cracks a couple jokes. I recall her at one point lifting his limp arm and letting it fall back onto the mattress and then exclaiming, "Yep, deader than a doornail." On her way toward the hospital exit, she runs into her grieving parents who break the news to her that her brother is dead.

[mdt]

I read this book, and had forgotten all about it until I read your post. I did some research online looking for it and this one looks like a possibility, but neither the title nor the cover ring any bells for me: Run, Run, as Fast as You Can by Mary Pope Osbourne. The description sounds like the book I remember:

After her family moves yet again, eleven-year-old Hallie relies on her kid brother Mickey for friendship, but the family soon learns that Mickey is gravely ill.

[Kinsey]

Wow! That's it. I immediately recognized the title (which I think is a reference to the Gingerbread Man), and the cover looks familiar. I noticed that the book has a Google preview. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain the most important parts of the story, but I'm 99% sure this is the book. Thank you!

[Rainbowheart]

Run, Run, as Fast as You Can! for the trackable link.