You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A little slow while still being a big cliched. I wish authors/filmmakers could learn how to be a little more seamless in their cultural references when doing historical fiction. But I loved the voice of the narrator and some of the characters are interesting.
Great! It deserved to win the Newbery Award! I liked the way that the book told two stories at the same time, one in 1918 and the other in the 1930's. We learn a lot about both time periods.
The mystery is fairly subdued - but it ties everything together.
I like books with good endings, also.
The mystery is fairly subdued - but it ties everything together.
I like books with good endings, also.
A youthful book that was easy to read and nice to end the day with. The mysterious aspects and curiosity of Abilene tied the story neatly together by the end.
Told in two storylines, this historical middle grades/YA novel of 1918 and 1936 is dripping with period detail. A spunky Depression-era girl explores the town where her rail-ridin' father grew up and learns about a town history rich with secrets, cons, tragedies, and an uplifting immigrants-banding-together storyline.
This was a reasonably enjoyable read for me at 34, but I think if I had read this in the target age demographic, I would not have liked it. Its slow-paced "story within a story" structure, dark themes, and climactic scenes which involve town meeting financial procedure make it feel much more like a book for adults to recommend to children than for children themselves.
CW/TW: This book deals with some dark content, including the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 (admittedly more upsetting to hear about now in 2020 than in 2010 when the book was written), the KKK (see below), and miscellaneous moments of violence.
Race Content: My main problem with this book is that despite racism being one of the central themes (to the point that an early scary encounter with the KKK sets the tone), there are no people of color (as we would understand them today), or even any mention of them. The book deals with racism by European descendents of colonists (e.g. English) against more recent immigrants from countries like Italy and Greece. It just seems weird and kind of cowardly to me for a book in 2010 to be taking a bold stand against 1918-style intra-white racism. Doing some quick googling I found that Frontenac, Kansas, on which Manifest is based, is/was considered a "sundown town" where Black Americans were not permitted or safe. This town's history of racism is far from the uplifting story of immigrants triumphing portrayed in the book.
Stray Observations
* I didn't love the structure where Abilene keeps getting pieces of the story, told omnisciently, from a particular fortune-teller character. She lampshades the fact that the Miss Sadie is relating scenes where she wasn't present by figuring that she got the story from people who were there and synthesized it, but I would have liked it better if Abilene had been the one doing the synthesizing: it would have been more interesting and exciting if she had treated it like a mystery, and dug up each piece independently, through research and by talking to people who were there and getting different individual perspectives. It also would have been more satisfying that. There are a few scenes that gesture at this, by having Abilene either read an old newspaper or go looking for evidence, and they're the best scenes in the book! Just having the main character passively receive information is deeply unsatisfying.
* I found it both confounding and counterproductive that the author hid for almost the entire book the information that. It absolutely did not need to be a secret and, in fact, the book is better and more interesting if you know. It also makes no sense in-world because literally everyone in the book knew, including the storyteller; (1) why would she hide it and (2) Abilene could have found out if she'd asked anyone.
* Light leaning on a misogynistic trope: the "good" girl characters are rough-and-tumble tomboys who wear overalls and catch frogs and the "bad" girl characters are traditionally feminine.
This was a reasonably enjoyable read for me at 34, but I think if I had read this in the target age demographic, I would not have liked it. Its slow-paced "story within a story" structure, dark themes, and climactic scenes which involve town meeting financial procedure make it feel much more like a book for adults to recommend to children than for children themselves.
CW/TW: This book deals with some dark content, including the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 (admittedly more upsetting to hear about now in 2020 than in 2010 when the book was written), the KKK (see below), and miscellaneous moments of violence.
Race Content: My main problem with this book is that despite racism being one of the central themes (to the point that an early scary encounter with the KKK sets the tone), there are no people of color (as we would understand them today), or even any mention of them. The book deals with racism by European descendents of colonists (e.g. English) against more recent immigrants from countries like Italy and Greece. It just seems weird and kind of cowardly to me for a book in 2010 to be taking a bold stand against 1918-style intra-white racism. Doing some quick googling I found that Frontenac, Kansas, on which Manifest is based, is/was considered a "sundown town" where Black Americans were not permitted or safe. This town's history of racism is far from the uplifting story of immigrants triumphing portrayed in the book.
Stray Observations
* I didn't love the structure where Abilene keeps getting pieces of the story, told omnisciently, from a particular fortune-teller character. She lampshades the fact that the Miss Sadie is relating scenes where she wasn't present by figuring that she got the story from people who were there and synthesized it, but I would have liked it better if Abilene had been the one doing the synthesizing: it would have been more interesting and exciting if she had treated it like a mystery, and dug up each piece independently, through research and by talking to people who were there and getting different individual perspectives. It also would have been more satisfying that
Spoiler
she becomes a reporter at the end* I found it both confounding and counterproductive that the author hid for almost the entire book the information that
Spoiler
Jinx is Gideon* Light leaning on a misogynistic trope: the "good" girl characters are rough-and-tumble tomboys who wear overalls and catch frogs and the "bad" girl characters are traditionally feminine.
It was hard for me to get into the story, but I ended up enjoying it. 3.5 stars.
Moon Over Manifest is the story of Abilene Tucker. As the story begins, 12-year-old Abilene Tucker is arriving in the town of Manifest, Kansas. She has been sent there by her father, Gideon Tucker. Although Abilene has always traveled with Gideon, he has decided that she will go to a town where he spent some time as a youth and he will return for her at the end of the summer. Abilene is confused and unhappy about her father’s abrupt decision to send her away.
Abilene jumps off the train before it actually pulls into the station at Manifest in order to observe the town before she actually arrives. She is to stay with Pastor “Shady” Howard. Gideon has told her little about Manifest except the fact that he lived there for a time and that she would be welcome. Abilene finds little in Manifest that endears it to her at first.
Her most prized possession is a compass of her father’s, which she carries all the time. During a small adventure spying on the town undertaker as he measures a grave Abilene discovers she has lost the compass. When she returns to search for it she does indeed find it–as a part of a complicated metal wind chime in front of Miss Sadie’s Diving Parlor past the gates labeled “Perdition”–a word with which Abilene is familiar from the sermons of various ministers.
Abilene accidentally shatters an irreplaceable Hungarian pot as she tries to reach the compass. Miss Sadie allows Abilene to pay for the broken pot and earn back the compass by doing various chores for her. Unhappy, but seeing the justice in this agreement, Abilene begins to work for Miss Sadie. As she works, Miss Sadie begins to tell Abilene the story of Manifest’s history.
Abilene is hoping desperately that Miss Sadie will reveal something that will help her fill in the gaps in her knowledge of her father. The story of Manifest, however, is much more than Abilene ever expected. The lives of people who still live in Manifest and the lives of some who are gone weave in and out of each other. Abilene is surprised by the fact that each person has their own story to tell. What Abilene finds in the course of Miss Sadie’s stories and the telling of her own, is the truth of the relationships people have with each other–how much we need each other in so many different ways and for so many different reasons.
Abilene finds in Manifest the beginning, the middle and the end of her own story. She also finds people to love and people who love her. She finds the way in which her story joins her father’s story–which is exactly what she came to Manifest to find.
The two narratives–Abilene’s from 1936 and Miss Sadie’s stories from 1917-18–are told in alternating chapters. Both have characters that leap fully formed from the pages into the reader’s imagination. The two separate narratives are connected by mementos from one time to another and by some of the characters that reside in both stories at both time periods. The plot resolution is both heart-warming and satisfying.
This is an excellent example of historical fiction with accurate representations from the early 20th Century in the United States, as well as a trove of fully realized characters each with his or her own depth and charm. It is, above all, a fantastic STORY–one that is greatly worth reading. It’s a terrific book for a class that is studying Prohibition/bootlegging, World War I or early 20th Century America.
Abilene jumps off the train before it actually pulls into the station at Manifest in order to observe the town before she actually arrives. She is to stay with Pastor “Shady” Howard. Gideon has told her little about Manifest except the fact that he lived there for a time and that she would be welcome. Abilene finds little in Manifest that endears it to her at first.
Her most prized possession is a compass of her father’s, which she carries all the time. During a small adventure spying on the town undertaker as he measures a grave Abilene discovers she has lost the compass. When she returns to search for it she does indeed find it–as a part of a complicated metal wind chime in front of Miss Sadie’s Diving Parlor past the gates labeled “Perdition”–a word with which Abilene is familiar from the sermons of various ministers.
Abilene accidentally shatters an irreplaceable Hungarian pot as she tries to reach the compass. Miss Sadie allows Abilene to pay for the broken pot and earn back the compass by doing various chores for her. Unhappy, but seeing the justice in this agreement, Abilene begins to work for Miss Sadie. As she works, Miss Sadie begins to tell Abilene the story of Manifest’s history.
Abilene is hoping desperately that Miss Sadie will reveal something that will help her fill in the gaps in her knowledge of her father. The story of Manifest, however, is much more than Abilene ever expected. The lives of people who still live in Manifest and the lives of some who are gone weave in and out of each other. Abilene is surprised by the fact that each person has their own story to tell. What Abilene finds in the course of Miss Sadie’s stories and the telling of her own, is the truth of the relationships people have with each other–how much we need each other in so many different ways and for so many different reasons.
Abilene finds in Manifest the beginning, the middle and the end of her own story. She also finds people to love and people who love her. She finds the way in which her story joins her father’s story–which is exactly what she came to Manifest to find.
The two narratives–Abilene’s from 1936 and Miss Sadie’s stories from 1917-18–are told in alternating chapters. Both have characters that leap fully formed from the pages into the reader’s imagination. The two separate narratives are connected by mementos from one time to another and by some of the characters that reside in both stories at both time periods. The plot resolution is both heart-warming and satisfying.
This is an excellent example of historical fiction with accurate representations from the early 20th Century in the United States, as well as a trove of fully realized characters each with his or her own depth and charm. It is, above all, a fantastic STORY–one that is greatly worth reading. It’s a terrific book for a class that is studying Prohibition/bootlegging, World War I or early 20th Century America.
Wow. Just, wow. The best book in a long time. Tears pricked my eyes at the end and I think I audibly gasped at the crucial part. Highly recommend.
i never would’ve stumbled upon this book if it weren’t for the free bookshelf outside my local library but i am so glad i did. it’s such a heartwarming story and i loved that it was told from two different time periods that intertwined to tell the beautiful, unforgettable story of Manifest and its people.