A review by bethanymiller415
Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

3.0

Muriel and Ollie Jorgensen and Frank and Emma Norman are brothers and sisters who have been neighbors and friends their whole lives. Their mothers have dreamed of the day when (they hope) Muriel will marry Frank and Ollie will marry Emma, and they will all be one big happy family, but those dreams are put on hold when Frank enlists in World War I and Ollie follows soon after. Muriel has always been opinionated and unafraid to speak her mind and she openly questions the president’s decision to enter into the war. Muriel isn’t the only strong woman in her family. Her Aunt Vera is a suffragette who is in Washington D.C. picketing outside the White House each day to try to get women the right to vote. Eventually, she is arrested and put in jail where she and some of the other women go on a hunger strike. With the day of her release approaching, it falls to Muriel to travel to Washington to bring her aunt, now very ill, home to Michigan. While in Washington, Muriel is exposed to a world much different from the one she is used to, and it opens her mind to a different way of life. In the meant time news of Frank and Ollie has made its way back to their families, changing everyone’s lives forever. Crossing Stones is a beautifully written novel-in-verse that captures a time period in American history through the story of two families.