Review: "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool

"Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool is a coming of age story, a mystery, and a history lesson all rolled into one. Abilene is a girl without a home. She doesn't mind, though.  That's how things have always been--just her and Gideon, her father, hopping train cars and travelling from place to place. Home is wherever they're together. But when Gideon sends her away to life in Manifest, Kansas, with no notion of when he'll come to get her again, Abilene truly feels adrift. Seh searches the town and its stories for signs of her father and the childhood he had there, but Gideon's past proves elusive. What she finds instead are new friends and a decades old town mystery. By listening to the stories of townsfolk and a little bit of snooping, Abilene learns all about a boy named Jinx, his friend Ned, and the town that Manifest used to be long before the Depression. Along the way, she also learns a lot about her father and herself.

Clare Vanderpool ingeniously weaves together two stories from two different pivotal periods in American History to educate the reader about both the Great War and the Great Depression. "Moon Over Manifest" also deals with issues surrounding immigration, racial inequality and prejudice, death, loss, and poverty. The multiple mysteries help keep the reader interested. Listening to the audiobook, it's easy to keep the storylines straight as the production used three separate voice actors, enabling the listening experience to better mirror the use of distinct font and styling to separate voices in the print version. School Library Journal recommends this book for grades five to eight, but I would recommend it to teens and adults as well.

--Madeline B., Mid County

Happy Father's Day

To celebrate the dads in your life, grab one of the following newly published books from the library and cuddle up for a read. Click on the titles to reserve a copy today.

--Andrea W., Headquarters

"Be Glad Your Dad . . . Is Not an Octopus!" by Matthew Logelin and Sara Jensen

This is a silly look at what life would be like if your dad behaved like different animals, such as a skunk or an octopus.

"Hammer and Nails" by Josh Bledsoe

Darcy is disappointed when her play date falls through. Then dad steps in with a plan to save the day. Are they up to the challenge of helping each other complete their lists?

"I Wonder: Celebrating Daddies Doin' Work" by Doyin Richards

This is a Father's Day card from a dad to his kids, with lovely photos of daddies and kiddos doing their thing.

One Unruffled Chick

Kristy Dempsey writes a totally radical tale of a surfer chick and her totally cool surfer dude dad. "Surfer Chick" is written in rhyme with a fun use of words; “Chick’s dad ruled the Roost”, “foul-tempered battle”, “ruffled her feathers”, etc. The story is that of a chick who wants to be like her dad and talks him into teaching her to surf. She has some difficulties, gets her feathers ruffled, learns about a wipeout, and has to find the courage to continue trying to be like her dad. 

Henry Cole’s illustrations are the perfect complement to Dempsey’s humorous prose.  The illustrations are created using acrylic paints and colored pencils. The art is lively, with bold colors that jump out from the page. Chick’s facial expressions leave no doubt about what she is thinking.  This is a fun father -daughter title. If you are looking for additional father-daughter books try "Faster!Faster!" by Leslie Patricelli.

Robbin O., Headquarters

Staff Review: "Because Your Daddy Loves You" by Andrew Clements

Happy Father's Day! To celebrate dads everywhere, we're highlighting the picture book release, "Because Your Daddy Loves You" by Andrew Clements.

Written by beloved chapter-book writer Andrew Clements and illustrated by R.W. Alley, "Because Your Daddy Loves You"  follows a little girl and her daddy as they spend the day at the beach. Clements shows all the many little ways that dads show their love--looking for a shoe, retrieving a lost beach ball, carrying a sleeping child to bed and more. Funny and tender, this would be a great a great book for any dad to read with his little ones. Recommended for ages two and up.


--Andrea W., H.Q.


P.S. For some more great titles about dads, click on the books below!

 

Happy Dad's Day

Just in time for Father’s Day are two fun titles that celebrate dads. ‘When Dads Don’t Grow Up’ by Marjorie Blain Parker will have the kids giggling. Parker tells us that dads who haven’t grown up understand milk tastes better through a straw, shopping carts are for racing, and clothes don’t have to match.  Most important she tells us that if you have a dad who hasn’t grown up you are one lucky kid. The art work by R.W. Alley is bright, humorous, and complements the story. 

 

For the preschool set “My Dad” by Steve Smallman is another humorous take on fatherhood. Written in rhyming couplets, “Some dads get upset and start grumbling and stamping, just because they’re kind of hopeless at camping!” are lists of things fathers do.  Dad activities range from cheering you up, making you burp to tooting in the water (which scares the fish away). Be sure to take a close look at Sean Julian’s illustrations. Besides the father bear and cub almost all the other scenes have other father/children groups who are also having great fun.

 --Robbin O., Headquarters