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A review by brandypainter
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool
3.0
Review originally posted here.
Manifest is a town that has seen better days. Although not nearly as bad off as some other midwestern towns during the Depression, the people have lost hope and have little binding them together. Abilene enters this atmosphere longing to find her father's footprints on the town and inquires of the "diviner", Miss Sadie. What she gets is the story of a boy named Jinx and the town of Manifest in 1918. I confess that it was this story that kept me reading the book. Miss Sadie paints a vivid picture of the town and life in small town America in the early 20th century. There were times I couldn't help thinking of The Music Man, particularly as Jinx is quite the conman. The characters of the town in 1918 were real and vivid, if a tad cliche'. It was them I was invested in and made me care about what happened to those who were still around in the 1936 portion of the story. Jinx and Ned both captured my imagination the same way they did Abilene's.
Abilene's story was not quite as enjoyable to me. I never really connected with her character or cared much about what happened to her. She is very much your typical middle grade Depression era novel heroine. Spunky, street smart, missing at least one parent, living in a small town, looking to connect with her dad. This story has been told so many times I am heartily sick of it. I found myself skimming the parts where the story focused on her for mention of the people from the 1918 story and to move on more quickly to the next part of that. It was almost as if her entire function was to be the vehicle for the older story, making her a cypher. Nothing about her was all that memorable.
I enjoyed Vanderpool's descriptive voice and use of language.
Overall I found the book charming and fun. There are not that many books for middle graders that depict the World War I era at all. The fact that this is one separates it from the sea of other MG Depression era novels it might otherwise have been lost in.
Manifest is a town that has seen better days. Although not nearly as bad off as some other midwestern towns during the Depression, the people have lost hope and have little binding them together. Abilene enters this atmosphere longing to find her father's footprints on the town and inquires of the "diviner", Miss Sadie. What she gets is the story of a boy named Jinx and the town of Manifest in 1918. I confess that it was this story that kept me reading the book. Miss Sadie paints a vivid picture of the town and life in small town America in the early 20th century. There were times I couldn't help thinking of The Music Man, particularly as Jinx is quite the conman. The characters of the town in 1918 were real and vivid, if a tad cliche'. It was them I was invested in and made me care about what happened to those who were still around in the 1936 portion of the story. Jinx and Ned both captured my imagination the same way they did Abilene's.
Abilene's story was not quite as enjoyable to me. I never really connected with her character or cared much about what happened to her. She is very much your typical middle grade Depression era novel heroine. Spunky, street smart, missing at least one parent, living in a small town, looking to connect with her dad. This story has been told so many times I am heartily sick of it. I found myself skimming the parts where the story focused on her for mention of the people from the 1918 story and to move on more quickly to the next part of that. It was almost as if her entire function was to be the vehicle for the older story, making her a cypher. Nothing about her was all that memorable.
I enjoyed Vanderpool's descriptive voice and use of language.
Overall I found the book charming and fun. There are not that many books for middle graders that depict the World War I era at all. The fact that this is one separates it from the sea of other MG Depression era novels it might otherwise have been lost in.