Sharon Creech

SPOILER ALERT:

A Middle-Grade book I read as an "assignment" by my editor for a manuscript I'm writing. From the writing perspective, it took a minute to understand the suggestion, but now I get it. It was also a nice read.

Walk Two Moons takes young Sal on a journey with her grandparents to retrace her vanished mother's steps from Bybanks, Kentucky, to Lewiston, Idaho. Given that I grew up 60 miles from Lewiston, Idaho, I thought how odd and fun. And it was.

Along the way, Sal explains to her grandparents an intertwined, underlying story of her friend Phoebe and her mother, who mysteriously also vanished. The circumstances are completely different for Phoebe, whose mother comes back with her eldest, adopted son in tow. On the other hand, Sal learns that her mother had passed away in Lewiston and was never coming home.

The book is a good life lesson for the 8-12-year-olds, written with a soft touch on the grown-up side and much realism on Sal's side. Any youngster, or oldster, would enjoy it.
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This is the humorous tale of Tillie and her school principal, Mr. Keene. Mr. Keene is so proud of the work the students at his school are doing that he decides to have students come to school on the weekends, then holidays, and all through the summer. The illustrations are filled with funny scenarios for readers to enjoy and the repetition in the dialogue and writing make it a fun story to read out loud. It is a good reminder for Mr. Keene, and readers, that sometimes too much of a good thing, turns out to be not so good in the end.… (more)