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Walk Two Moons. Sharon Creech. 1994. HarperCollins. 280 pages. [Source: Bought]

Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true. I have lived most of my thirteen years in Bybanks, Kentucky, which is not much more than a caboodle of houses roosting in a green spot alongside the Ohio River. 

Did I love Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons? Yes and no. On the one hand, it's a book that I know I would have either--as a kid-- avoided at all costs (if anyone had dropped hints of how sad it was) OR found myself hating, bitterly regretting having picked it up in the first place. There was a time I thought all sad books should be labeled. So at least you were making an informed decision before you got swept up in the story and invested a part of yourself in it. On the other hand--as an adult--I couldn't help finding it a beautiful and compelling story.

Sal--the heroine--is on a road trip with her grandparents (Gram and Gramps). They are on their way to "see" Sal's mother. That's what readers are told, and, as an adult I connected the dots early on. (Sal's world is upset when her Dad moves them to a new town after learning that the mom wouldn't be coming back.) But much is left a mystery for the reader. I can't honestly say how I would have interpreted the text as a kid. It doesn't really matter. The trip is enlivened by Sal's storytelling. She is telling the story of her new friend, her classmate, her almost-neighbor: Phoebe. (Readers also hear of other friends--classmates--including a boy named Ben.) Phoebe's life is also becoming something of a mess. Though Sal is better at spotting the signs than Phoebe herself. The book alternates between focusing on the past--Sal's new life, her friendships, her memories, her emotions--and the present, the road trip. Both stories are compelling. Mainly through dialogue, the grandparents become fully fleshed characters that you can't help loving and admiring. The way they love Sal, and, cherish her. There is just something sweet about this family. And readers do get to know them better than any other adult in the novel. Unfortunately, I think that is why the book leads me angry. Part of me angry anyway. THE ENDING. I did not see it coming. And it was beyond cruel to this reader. Was it realistic? Yes. Looking back were their signs that it was coming? Probably. But though I guessed one reason why the novel was one of those dreaded SAD books. I didn't the second. And the second HURT so much.

Walk Two Moons is the 1995 Newbery winner.

Have you read Walk Two Moons? What did you think? Like it? Love it? Hate it? Do you like sad books? Or do you avoid them when you can?

© 2015 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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Right now as I type this using my iPhone we are heading to Elgin Illinois. 

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Before anyone sends a search party: I haven't fallen into a black hole, or deep swamp, or gone on a pilgrimage to a faraway place (although that last one sounds intriguing, right?). I apologize for the radio silence on the blog. But things have been, well, a bit busy around here.

First, I've been on the road. Good fun, especially the school visits! I love talking to kids, even if they are a lot smarter than I am... I've been to book signings, book festivals. This is me (to the right) with the lovely Emily from Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi. Local bookstores are always the best, but Lemuria is like a hideaway from the world, filled with books. Go visit if you get a chance; you won't regret it.

I've been enjoying my Skype visits with classrooms too. What did we do before the internet, people? It's awesome how you can travel without leaving home.

Also, I've been writing. Dark, broody YA crimey stuff. I'll keep you posted on where that goes, I promise.

And the Bradley clan is relocating, back to beautiful Colorado. We're packing up cats, kids, and books this June, so I'll apologize right now for future radio silence. This 2014 year appears to be the year of chaos...

How have you all been? Any good book recommendations for my summer reading pile??

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BY JEN VAUGHN - Like any good cartoonist and comics evangelist, a road trip cannot just be days of blasting Mates of State and stopping at roadside attractions like Corn Palace. No, no, on my trip from The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT to Fantagraphics in Seattle, WA will be punctuated by a few stops to conduct portfolio reviews and drop off some Schulz Library tote bags at great comic book stores across America.

Bill over at Copacetic Comics is nice enough to host comics portfolio reviews from noon-2pm on Monday, June 4th while Spokane’s Saranac Art-Projects Gallery will host an event on Saturday, June 9th from 2-4pm (thanks to cartoonist Allen Duffy). You can bet that I’m staying with a cartoonist in EVERY. SINGLE. CITY. More in a future, post-road-trip post!

For more stops and details visit the Schulz Library Blog. Tweet at me @theJenya or @CartoonStudies if you have questions or know of the BEST coffee shops to draw in along the way.

P.S. Don’t forget to VOTE FOR THE EISNERS! If you qualify, that is.

—

Jen Vaughn definitely brought some board games in her car, just saying. We could play Civilization or Power Grid instead of sleeping on the road trip.

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Brands are testing out ways to use Pinterest to drive engagement, and Guess (has just launched a clever contest asking users to create boards inspired by its new brightly hued denim line, with fashion bloggers serving as judges. It’s a great... Read the rest of this post

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Anyway! I'll be at Last Thursday Art Walk on Alberta St. vending from 6-10pm tonight. Swing by & say hello :) I've never been before, so I'm really nervous/excited to see how it goes. I've heard nothing but good things so here goes nothing! It's also the the last stop on my craft fair summer tour so here's to the end and the beginning!

Last Thursday
1476 Northeast Alberta Street Portland
6-10pm
more info here

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What’s your best road trip story?

I’m doing a giveaway to celebrate Winnemucca’s release! Swing by any of these blogs to leave your answer and enter to win one of 5 Kindle copies of Winnemucca or a $15 Amazon Gift Certificate!

Jagged Edge
The Wormhole
Book Lover & Procrastinator
Aobibliophile
Supernatural Bookworm
Reality Bites
My Neurotic Book Affair
Phantom Paragrapher

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The Miles Between. Mary E. Pearson. 2009. Henry Holt. 272 pages. 

I was seven the first time I was sent away. This raised eyebrows, even among by parent's globe-trotting friends, and I was brought back home in short order. Rumors are embarrassing, you know? A nanny was employed, but that only partially solved their problem. I was still in the house. I was seen and heard. When I turned eight years old, it seemed reasonable enough to send me off again. And they did. They never kept me at any one place for long. 

Des (Destiny) Faraday, our narrator, doesn't have many friends. Then again, she doesn't want any friends. Readers meet her on October 19th, a day that Des has come to dread year after year, though readers aren't quite sure why. Wanting to take control of her life, Des rips the page right off her calendar. Things seem to be off on a shaky start. Until she meets a stranger. Until she asks for one fair day in the universe. Until she finds a car with a running engine. Until she finds three companions that need escape from Hedgebrook Academy--a boarding school--just as much as she does. Can one day of freedom on the road change lives? Perhaps.

I enjoyed The Miles Between. It was emotional--very emotional in places. Though the novel only covers one day, there is so much growth and development. Destiny is changed by this day--and it's a wonderful thing to see. And the writing is lovely. I would compare it to Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, but I think The Miles Between is an easier read, a less-intimidating read.

There are so many different ways of being good. It's all about perspective. (35)

The world before us is a postcard, and I imagine the story we are writing on it. (45)

© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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It's sunny in Rose City as I type. I just visited the central library to do a little research. Right now I'm sitting in a little cafe across the street for some sustenance. It's amazing how you go, go, go when you travel and then all of a sudden it's 3:30 and you haven't had any lunch.

Joe and I celebrated our birthdays in Vegas. We went to Zumanity, an absolutely mind-blowing show, and then out to Lavo for dinner. We gambled and won a little bit, which is always better than losing it all, opting to gamble at tables by pole dancers. I think they are lucky.

We've been really out of the news cycle. So you can imagine our surprise when we passed a few billboards in Oregon that foretold Judgment Day, which I guess was supposed to happen last Saturday, but didn't. Hmmm. Billboards? Rlly? Which lead to this tragedy.

Heard about the storm in Missouri, though. So sad. So many natural disasters. Kinda crazy. Big prayers for everyone in the south. The storms have been awful this year.

Our first stop in Oregon was Ashland. And it is an enchanting place. Very green and beautiful. We went to the Dragonfly for dinner and it's a great restaurant if you are looking for a good place to dine before doing a little Shakespeare. It's little patio reminded me of restaurants in Carmel.

Big shocker so far? Restaurants in Ashland and the Rose City stop serving at 9!!!!!! Gulp. Hard to get back to regular hours after Vegas time. Didn't hit the hay until 2 or 3 AM every night/morning.

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At the beginning of June I'll have a big announcement. I'm really excited and a little nervous. But, it's all good. I guess that's when a person knows they're really alive. I'm going to get a month long party started here. Until then, I'll have tales from the road coming next week. There's a birthday trip to Vegas and a mystery road trip. All good. We'll look forward to what the road brings. But, right now, I'm enjoying a lazy afternoon at home, editing. I'm about to make my favorite snack on the planet, gourmet garlic popcorn. I melt butter and press fresh garlic into it and sprinkle the mixture over popcorn I've popped on the stove. I sprinkle a little rosemary salt and shredded Parmesan cheese in there too. My family laughs when I call it gourmet. It's just a little butter, garlic and salt and parm, after all. TGIF!

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Rules of the Road. Joan Bauer. 1998/2005. Penguin. 208 pages.

I leaped onto the sliding ladder in the back room of Gladstone's Shoe Store of Chicago, gave it a shove, and glided fast toward the end of the floor to ceiling shelves of shoeboxes.

I love Rules of the Road. I think it is my favorite and best Joan Bauer book. (In case you haven't read her, you should! You really should! She's fabulous!) I read this one in pre-blog days, so this is my first opportunity to gush about how wonderful it is.

Jenna Boller, our heroine, has a part-time job selling shoes. And it's a job that she enjoys very much--especially on days when her drunk father doesn't show up at the store to embarrass her. So Jenna is quite surprised when Mrs. Gladstone, the owner of the Gladstone company, asks her to drive her across country to visit all her stores before the big meeting in August. Surprised because Jenna is relatively a new driver. Surprised because she could have hired anyone, confided in anyone. But these two have a way of bringing out the best in one another. And a wonderfully odd friendship begins. Together these two will cover many, many miles. They'll have many opportunities to discuss the meaning of life. (Not that they'd ever call it that, mind you!) Each woman has their own battle to fight. Mrs. Gladstone struggling to hold onto her company, fighting her greedy son and stockholders. Jenna struggling to deal with her life, her father. Does he have any place in her life? Should she work at forgiving him so she can move on with her life? Is the anger and anxiety worth it? How do you stop worrying though? How do you stop hating? How can you turn your feelings off and on? She has a dad-shaped hole in her life, and it's a hole that is hard to ignore...

I loved this one. I loved the characters. I loved the writing. I would definitely recommend it!

I thought of all the good drivers I'd ever seen, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what made them that way. They just got behind the wheel, drove, and didn't run into things. The not running into things was important. (25)

Opal couldn't cope with my dateless state and kept trying to fix me up with sub-par guys like Morris, her second cousin twice removed, who, believe me, you want to be removed from at least twice. (31)

My grandma always said that people who snored were sleeping with enthusiasm. I tried to remember this, but there's just so much enthusiasm a person can handle in close quarters. (49)

I learned great road truths that teenagers aren't always exposed to.
Never go into a restaurant with a sign that says GOOD EATS.
Never eat at a place called MOM'S, because it's a safe bet Mom's been dead for years and whoever's in the kitchen didn't have a working relationship with her.
If you see four or more pickups in front of a diner, chances are you'll get a good meal. (113-4)

"I thought people in Texas were laid back," I shouted as two mega-trucks thundered by.
"They are," Mrs. Gladstone said happily, "except on the road." (121)

My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid. Close to everything a human being needed to know was somewhere in the library. There was plenty I needed to know. (142)

It's the little things, not just in selling, but in life that make the difference. The small moments when you can touch another person. Harry Bender was always looking for them and he found more than any person I'd ever met. (146)

2 Comments on Rules of the Road (YA), last added: 3/26/2011

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Alexis @ Reflections of a Bookaholic said, on 3/25/2011 4:31:00 PM

I love the quotes you included. This character and book sounds fantastic.

melissa @ 1lbr said, on 3/26/2011 8:20:00 AM

Oh, one of my favorites too! Makes me want to reread it. Great review.

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My dad manufactures toilet seat protectors. He’s obsessed about the thinness of the paper, how to fold it the right way so when people grab one it’s ready to go and cutting the center out just right so it makes sense from a profit standpoint and makes customers happy. There’s a lot of math that goes into those things just so people can well, you-know disease free. I mean it’s an industry that never existed in the 60s, 70s, 80s or even the 90s. It’s a New Millenium Industry. People make fortunes killing germs that have always been around.

Which leads me to the last time math was my friend. I was somewhere between California and New Mexico and I had to make a break from a, let’s say venue, where the po-po were putting two-and-two together and I discovered I was broke. And as I was on the run and the first place I came across was a Shell station, I bolted myself inside the bathroom. I leaned up against the white tile wall trying to catch my breath, trying to figure out what to do. But it turned out I couldn’t think too well with those crazy bright lights blaring and those seat protectors staring. All I could think to do was rifle through my pockets. Which sounds easy but I had tons of them. It’s the first thing you do on the road–acquire pockets. But that’s another story.

Anyway, I’m rifling and in the lowest pocket of my cargo pants, I find it. A five dollar bill. It was like finding a small bottle of Magie Noir. Money and perfume was all I dreamed about once I’d scored my ride which I had to abandon. So I peeked outside the door and when the coast was clear I walked to the Stop & Go and put my $5 down on a $1 half gallon of water, which was so over-the-top expensive but investing twenty percent of my fortune on water was what I had to do as I had the rest of the desert to cross. And just as a police car pulled into the station, that ex-con behind the counter made my change, counting the bills as he placed them in my hand, “That’s five, six, seven, eight, and nine.”

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0 Comments on Answer: The last time math was my friend as of 1/1/1900