After finishing Moon over Manifest (Random House, 2010) by Claire Vanderpool, I feel like I need to read it over again. I suppose that is a good sign, I want to read it over again, it's that good. I have read a lot of Newbery Award winning books and this is very well deserving. It's one of the best over the last several years. When I started reading this book, it reminded me a lot of another recent Newbery Award winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, but once I finished I believe it is closer related to Long Way from Chicago. The ending is somewhat shocking. (Spoiler Alert!!) As I was reading, I had a pretty good feeling that the stories Miss Sadie were sharing about Jinx was going to end up being Abilene's father, Gideon. I didn't guess how Miss Sadie was going to figure into the stories.
As I was reading I kept thinking about the title of the book and where it came from. The title is revealed towards the end when Abilene is reading one of the letters from Ned, who is stationed in Europe during WWI. Ned is writing to Jinx and asking him about the October moon. Ned is comforted to know that even though he is half way around the globe, he is looking at the same moon. This book was a true joy to read and will be easy to recommend to students in grades 4 and up. There are no violent scenes, no questionable language and no sexual themes.
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