Walk Two Moons

It seems like most readers love Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech. My 12 year old works in his school library (which serves 400+ 5th and 6th graders), and reports that it is checked out often and that both adults and kids say it's great, though he hasn't read it and doesn't really want to do so - I suspect because he thinks it's a girl book. I'm hoping he gets past this phase soon.

Anyway, I was a bit surprised when I didn't start out liking Walk Two Moons very much at all.

I felt like Creech did a good job of capturing how some different kids think (and Phoebe and Sal were both wonderful, complicated characters), and there were some great portrayals of stiff-necked parents and grandparents and loud (vs. mildly neurotic) kids:

"I don't how you can stand it," Phoebe said to Mary Lou.

"Stand what?"

Phoebe pointed to Tommy and Dougie, who were running around like wound-up toys, making airplane noises and train noises and zooming in between us and then running up ahead and falling over each other and crying and then leaping back up again and socking each other and chasing after bumblebees.

"I'm used to it," Mary Lou said. "My brothers are always doing beef-brained things." (p. 62)

But I was increasingly annoyed by the tone of the story - in an early draft of this review, I even wrote a snide sentence about how there were enough chickabiddies, gooseberries, whang-doodles and the like to last me 'til the next blue moon. And as someone who has regularly driven from Indiana to Illinois near the spot where both states touch Lake Michigan, the part where Gram and Gramps and Salamanca see Lake Michigan after a big curve in the road just bothered me. We've tried all of the different routes into the Chicago area, and there is just nowhere where you can see "a huge jing-bang mass of water....as blue as the bluebells that grow behind the barn....like a huge blue pasture of water" (p. 36-37) from any highway or road into the Windy City. It's all abandoned steel mills and grain elevators and huge industrial complexes around there. You can't see the lake until you're way past the state border, and there is just no way you can swerve across two lanes of traffic and be standing barefoot in Lake Michigan "faster than you can milk a cow".

I know, you may think it's a petty complaint, but it's always jarring when your reality is so very different from an author's.

Similarly, some American Indians aren't particularly thrilled by Creech's use of rather generic nature-loving Indian stereotypes in Walk Two Moons (or the fortune-cookie title). And I thought the whole Native heritage part of the book actually detracted from the story - it didn't really serve any purpose that I could see except making Sal and her mother slightly exotic, with their unusual names, and giving them an excuse to feel closer to nature. Can't a sixth-grader with African or German great-great-grandparents feel just as much connection to their environment as Salamanca Tree Hiddle does?

Around the middle of the book, though, I was so drawn into Phoebe and Sal's intertwined stories, that most of my earlier criticisms faded. I thought I had figured out the mystery of Sal's mother, Chanhassen, early on in the story, but it turned out to be much more complicated than I had anticipated. And I really appreciated the way that Creech examined women's roles as mothers and wives in this part of the book, and Salamanca's increasing understanding of her mother, and her understanding of how other people (like Phoebe) see their own mothers.

Phoebe's obsession with cholesterol is one of the funnier parts of the book, and pretty prescient when it comes to orthorexia (an overriding focus on eating the right kinds of foods), recently popularized by Michael Pollan in his latest book - In Defense of Food.

I was surprised and moved by the plot twists in the second half of the book - it was undeniably powerful and cleverly mapped out, the way more and more of the story was revealed. I think I'd like to read something else by Sharon Creech, and if I don't endorse Walk Two Moons as whole-heartedly as some of its other readers, I do have to say that I am very glad to have read it.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Stars: ****

Walk Two Moons won the 1995 Newbery Medal.

Summary: “As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe’s outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold – the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.”

I must admit that the summary at the back did not sound all the interesting to me. However the book was very well put together. The summary just doesn’t explain enough. Sal is on the road with her Grandparents and is telling them the story of her friend Phoebe and her life, which at times seems to be very similar to Sal’s. The book switches back and forth from what is happening with Sal and her grandparents to what happened with Phoebe. It does not always alternate every other chapter, which makes it more interesting since you don’t know whose story will be continued next until you start reading.

The story has good lessons in it and would make a good school read I think.

Walk Two Moons

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

I read this book for the first time when I was doing my training to become a librarian. It was a breathtaking book, full of mysteries and small plots that all come together for a fantastic ending. The story is that of Sal who is traveling with her quirky grandparents across the US, taking the same path as that of Sal’s mother. Sal is on her way to find her mother who left home a year ago and has not returned. During the trip, Sal tells her grandparents the story of her friend, Phoebe, who received mysterious messages, met a “lunatic,” and, like Sal, had a mother who disappeared. The story is thoughtful as well as plotful. I loved this book.

Walk Two Moons Sharon Creech 1995

A journey with your grandparents, a missing mother, a best friend Phoebe and a lunatic or two are all ingredients in this story of love, growing up separation and loss. Grandparents add a lighter streak of comedy as Salamanca Tree Hiddle journeys from Ohio to Idaho. The love of these two is deep and born of a great tenderness. The book is at times amusing, poignant and full of emotion as the young Sal strives to bring her Mum home.

As Sal learns more of herself the thought provoking nature of the tale becomes more apparent. It is a many layered story with the moral being never judge a man till you have walked two moons in his moccasins. Truly deserving of the 1995 Newbery award I would highly recommend this book.