Publisher: Harper-Collins, 1994
Scale: Blue-Hot
Messages from beyond? Murderers next door? Stolen kisses? It's the perfect capturing of a thirteen year old girl's world. Yet like many thirteen year olds themselves, there are depths of emotion and experience which ebb and flow throughout the story, briefly touching on tender truths and then receding, revealing the rocks beneath the waves. Veteran novelist Sharon Creech's novel, Walk Two Moons, was more than deserving of its Newbery Medal.
Our young heroine, Sal Hiddle, is an excellent storyteller. She uses a story about another girl to exorcise her own confusion and hurt over her mother's mysterious vanishing. This gentle novel about a young girl's view of the world around her in the days after her mother disappears, makes a compelling read. Sal's cross-country trip with her grandparents also adds another lovely thread in this marvelous tapestry, as this couple provides a foil for the struggling marriage of Sal's own parents. Her grandparents' relationship alternates between vague accusations "she left me for the egg-man" and tender affirmations, "you old gooseberry".
When the novel winds down, it's like a falling star that shines brighter as it comes toward you. It's brightest at the end. Creech cleverly withholds some of the truths so that we can enjoy - with some emotion - and share in Sal's revelations about her mother and her own place in the world. Creech's use of language and imagery are deft and accurate and certainly add meaning to the experience of the book. With the range of characters and relationships in the novel, all of us are certain to find some mirror of our own adult experiences, to gaze with understanding. Young readers should enjoy the novel for its realistic and brave portrayal of being young, vulnerable, suspicious, hopeful, crushing, strong, weak, cruel and kind - sometimes within seconds of the next emotion.
Scale: Blue-Hot
Messages from beyond? Murderers next door? Stolen kisses? It's the perfect capturing of a thirteen year old girl's world. Yet like many thirteen year olds themselves, there are depths of emotion and experience which ebb and flow throughout the story, briefly touching on tender truths and then receding, revealing the rocks beneath the waves. Veteran novelist Sharon Creech's novel, Walk Two Moons, was more than deserving of its Newbery Medal.
Our young heroine, Sal Hiddle, is an excellent storyteller. She uses a story about another girl to exorcise her own confusion and hurt over her mother's mysterious vanishing. This gentle novel about a young girl's view of the world around her in the days after her mother disappears, makes a compelling read. Sal's cross-country trip with her grandparents also adds another lovely thread in this marvelous tapestry, as this couple provides a foil for the struggling marriage of Sal's own parents. Her grandparents' relationship alternates between vague accusations "she left me for the egg-man" and tender affirmations, "you old gooseberry".
When the novel winds down, it's like a falling star that shines brighter as it comes toward you. It's brightest at the end. Creech cleverly withholds some of the truths so that we can enjoy - with some emotion - and share in Sal's revelations about her mother and her own place in the world. Creech's use of language and imagery are deft and accurate and certainly add meaning to the experience of the book. With the range of characters and relationships in the novel, all of us are certain to find some mirror of our own adult experiences, to gaze with understanding. Young readers should enjoy the novel for its realistic and brave portrayal of being young, vulnerable, suspicious, hopeful, crushing, strong, weak, cruel and kind - sometimes within seconds of the next emotion.
