New Book Review: Moon Over Manifest

By Clare Vanderpool
Pages: 351
Call number: J Vanderpool, C.
Best for grades 5-8

As soon as I heard that Moon over Manifest won the Newbery Medal this year I added my name to the hold-list and just finished reading it. This historical fiction novel alternates between over two time periods in the small fictional town of Manifest, Kansas. We start in the depression—the summer of 1936 with Abilene Tucker, 12, who’s father sends her to Manifest while he works on the railroad.

Abilene stays with Pastor Shady who is, well… shady, and has been the interim Pastor/bartender for the last 14 years, and much to her dismay she has to go to school, even if it is just the last day. Assigned with the summer homework of writing a story and a couple of cousins to help, Abilene visits Miss Sadie, the fortune teller who begins to tell her stories of Manifest in 1918, during WWI when her father was in town.

Miss Sadie tells her the stories of Jinx and Ned and all the trouble they get into. While is starts with the predictable hijynx of small-town boyhood we soon learn that there’s more to the story than meets the eye, and that these boys could not only bring terrible trouble to Manifest, but also could become the town’s salvation. Not only during WWI, but also 18 years later during the depression.

Moon over Manifest brings to life the fact that everyone has a story, and there is more to every story than can ever really be told. This is a book you can read again and again and always find something new.

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-JW-