Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool. Delacorte, 2010, 342 pages plus historical notes.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: Ages 10-12

Bottom line: This Newbery-winning historical novel for middle grades takes readers to mid-America during the Great Depression.

Abilene Tucker, age 12, has absorbed a lot of lessons from her father Gideon, an itinerant laborer. One of them is that “it’s best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you.” That’s why, even though her ticket to Manifest, Kansas, was bought and paid for (for a change), she jumps from the train just before it pulls into the station. Manifest is the place her daddy regards as home: hearing Gideon tell about it was like sucking on butterscotch. Smooth and sweet. The actual town can’t live up to expectations: it’s dusty and half-deserted, echoing with memories that Abilene soon feels called to discover. Why did her father feel such warmth for the place? Where did he really come from? And why did he insist she spend the summer here , with the former bootlegger-turned-preacher Shady Howard? Solving those mysteries is the business of the story, which shifts back and forth from Abilene’s present (narrated in first-person) to her father’s past (narrated by the mysterious Miss Sadie, a fortune-teller and conjurer). Abilene’s only clue is a box of crumbling keepsakes found under the floorboards of Shady’s decrepit farmhouse. With her new friends, Lettie and Ruthanne, she seeks out the provenance of these items, in spite of occasional anonymous warnings to Leave Well Enough Alone. The warnings come from someone called The Rattler–and feel a bit tacked-on, as though the author wanted to create a sense of menace in the crowded plot and character list (the cast of characters posted at the front of the book helps a lot).

Still, Moon Over Manifest is an absorbing story with interesting characters and a time-honored theme: finding home. There’s a hovering, more adult message that may not be as well understood at this age, even though it’s spelled out: “Who would dream that one can love without being crushed under the weight of it?” In other words, love is life’s highest joy, but also its greatest burden–a truth that is not likely to sink in without more life experience. Christian parents may object to how Abilene gets her father back (by a con) and how so much credibility is given to the occult-ish Miss Sadie (who doesn’t really tell fortunes). Pastor Howard, the “interim Baptist” preaches no specifically Christian doctrine, but The Lord himself knew the power of a good story. How it can reach out and wrap around a person.  Piecing together stories is the way Abilene starts making sense of life and launching a story of her own.

Cautions: Violence (off-stage), Language (mild profanity)

Overall value: 4

• Worldview/moral value: 3.75
• Artistic value: 4

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