A review of Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.
When I first read the first chapter of Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Medal award-winning juvenile novel by Sharon Creech, I didn’t quite realize what I was getting into. You can read it yourself, preview the first chapter at Amazon.com. Now after having read the whole book, reading these first few pages makes me tear up a little.
This is the second book by Sharon Creech that I’ve read recently. The first was Heartbeat, a much shorter story told in a unique style. Walk Two Moons is a more traditional, 280-page novel, but no less worthy of note.
It’s the story of Sal, a 13-year-old girl traveling with her grandparents to Lewiston, Idaho to see her mother. On the way, she tells them of all that happened after she and her father moved to Euclid, Ohio. They moved when they found out her mother was not coming home again. In Euclid, she met a girl named Pheobe, but what she didn’t realize at the time was that Pheobe’s story was hers, too.
Behind these interwoven tales are all the feelings of a young teenage girl when her mother goes away and may not come back, or will not come back.
The story is targeted at girls aged 9-12, but it may also be appropriate for young teens. I enjoyed it, too, but I have broad tastes, except when it comes to the quality of the story. And good, solid storytelling characterize this novel through its multiple, interwoven subplots and strong character development.
There’s Pheobe, Sal’s paranoid friend, whose own mother has a secret. There’s the strange red-headed woman, Margaret Cadaver, whom Sal’s father has oddly befriended. And there’s the blind Mrs. Partridge, Margaret’s elderly mother, who can tell who you are and how old you are just by touching your face. And we also learn about Sal’s close relationship with her mother and why it’s so difficult to accept that her mother isn’t coming home again, and why it’s impossible for her to talk to anyone about it.
Without revealing how the story turns out, let me just say that it left me with a feeling of melancholy satisfaction.
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