Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
2011 Newbery Award Winner
342 pages
Started: 11 April 2012
Finished: 19 April 2012
Abilene Tucker comes into the town of Manifest on the rails during the Depression. She arrives the day before the last day of school and is assigned to write a story of the summer for homework, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. As her own story unfolds over the summer the story of the town twenty years ago opens itself to her.
In 1918 the town was a mining town, the citizens were immigrants from many different countries, the US was entering WWI, and the Spanish flu was knocking on the door. Jinx, a teenage young man, arrives in town on the rail with a history of his own, a story he’d rather escape, befriends a local youth named Ned, and the two have many fine adventures that year before Ned lies about his age and joins the army.
As Miss Sadie, the town diviner, tells Abilene the story of Jinx and Ned, the past starts to weave its way back into the present. And Abilene, who has only ever known the middle of her own story, finally learns about her beginnings, and the beginnings of her father.
I really appreciated that this book, without every saying it, says that each of us has our own story. And we each have a need to share it. Find a way to tell your story.
Rating: 10




