Moon Over Manifest

Photo courtesy of Clare Vanderpool

1.      BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vanderpool, Clare. 2010. Moon Over Manifest. New York, NY: Delacourte Press. ISBN 978-0-385-90750-7 

2.  PLOT SUMMARY

In 1936, twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker jumps off the train before it reaches the station in Manifest, KS, to allow herself to see the town before it sees her. Such seasoned wariness is the result of her travels with her father, who unbeknownst to Abilene is leaving her there as he feels he is a bad jinx on her life.  She only plans to stay with the pastor for the summer until her father returns for her. She is soon drawn into a mystery, unraveled with her new friends through the stories of 1918 from a diviner named Miss Sadie, the entries in Miss Hattie’s 1918 newspaper, and Army letters written to Jinx by Ned. She discovers clues to her own past and that of her father’s, rekindling awareness in the entire town of who they are and where they came from. She learns that Manifest is a town with a past and a future, a town that has experienced loss, yet has a great capacity to love.

3.      CRITICAL ANALYSIS

In her debut novel, Clare Vanderpool’s writing is fresh and real, with dialogues that are authentic to both 1918 and 1936, the two years encompassed in this story. She includes many historical details over the First World War, the Great Depression, the Spanish Flu Epidemic, and Prohibition which give the story structure but do not overwhelm the plot. The town of Manifest is multicultural and the colorful stories of the various immigrants are incorporated seamlessly into the storyline. Slang and products of each time period are mentioned giving the dialogue an authentic feel. Humor is injected into the story to keep it from getting too heavy, balancing the sorrow, making the story a delightful read for readers aged 9 to 14. Abilene is a likable, inquisitive, and hard-working character.  She tends to classify people and things as “universals”-typical of a certain type or as unique one-of-a-kind items. The interactions between Abilene and the children and adults of the book are lively and believable, with initial suspicion on both sides eventually giving way to friendship and love. Vanderpool does not gloss over difficult situations such as the actions of the Ku Klux Klan and the hardships of war. Instead she presents a realistic, vivid recreation of life in the early twentieth century. Through Abilene’s and the town’s various difficulties and mysteries, and ultimately the elucidation of the past, Vanderpool shows readers that Melville’s expression, “It is not down in any map; true places never are,” is valid not only in the past but also for today’s audience. 

Clare Vanderpool includes an Author’s Note in the back explaining some of the background for the town of Manifest, which is based on the Kansas town of Frontenac, a multicultural mining town in the early part of the twentieth century. She also provides a bibliography of “Sources and Suggestions for Further Reading.”

4. AWARDS AND REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

2011 John Newbery Medal

Starred review from Booklist: “After a life of riding the rails with her father, 12-year-old Abilene can’t understand why he has sent her away to stay with Pastor Shady Howard in Manifest, Missouri, a town he left years earlier; but over the summer she pieces together his story. In 1936, Manifest is a town worn down by sadness, drought, and the Depression, but it is more welcoming to newcomers than it was in 1918, when it was a conglomeration of coal-mining immigrants who were kept apart by habit, company practice, and prejudice. Abilene quickly finds friends and uncovers a local mystery. Their summerlong “spy hunt” reveals deep-seated secrets and helps restore residents’ faith in the bright future once promised on the town’s sign. Abilene’s first-person narrative is intertwined with newspaper columns from 1917 to 1918 and stories told by a diviner, Miss Sadie, while letters home from a soldier fighting in WWI add yet another narrative layer. Vanderpool weaves humor and sorrow into a complex tale involving murders, orphans, bootlegging, and a mother in hiding. With believable dialogue, vocabulary and imagery appropriate to time and place, and well-developed characters, this rich and rewarding first novel is “like sucking on a butterscotch. Smooth and sweet.”” 

Starred review from Kirkus Reviews: “Readers will cherish every word up to the heartbreaking yet hopeful and deeply gratifying ending.”

Starred review from Publishers Weekly: “Replete with historical details and surprises, Vanderpool's debut delights, while giving insight into family and community.” 

Review from School Library Journal: “History and fiction marry beautifully in this lively debut novel. It's as if readers jump off the train in Manifest, KS, in 1936 with Abilene Tucker, 12, the feisty, likable, and perceptive narrator…The mystery about Manifest and Gideon unfolds after Abilene finds a box filled with intriguing keepsakes. It includes a letter dated 1917 to someone named Jinx from Ned Gillen that has a warning, “THE RATTLER is watching.” This starts Abilene, with the help of new friends Ruthanne and Lettie, on a search to learn the identity of the pair. The story cleverly shifts back and forth between the two eras...This thoroughly enjoyable, unique page-turner is a definite winner.” 

5. CONNECTIONS

*Have students develop PowerPoints or storyboards of the two stories of the novel and all of the characters involved in each. Research details, such as the First World War, the Orphan Trains, and the Ku Klux Klan, as needed to add to understanding of the history presented in the novel.

*Author Clare Vanderpool is interested in the effect of place on the individual. Have students reflect and develop artwork-collage, sculpture, drawings or photography of what a “true place” means to them. Share with the class or the school.

*Investigate the people and items Abilene calls “universals” and contrast them to things she sees as unique. Are there universals present today?

*Examine the presentation of prejudice and hatred in the novel through the actions of the Mining Company and the Ku Klux Klan. Contrast this with the multiculturalism of Manifest, KS. How did the different groups get along? How did their relationships change over the course of the novel?

*Other books about the First World War, the Great Depression, the Spanish influenza Epidemic, and the Ku Klux Klan:

Bartoletti, S. C. They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group. ISBN 061844033X

Brocklehurst, Ruth. The Usborne Introduction to the First World War. ISBN 0794514553

Clare, John D. First World War. ISBN 0152000879

Cooper, Michael L. Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930’s. ISBN 0618154493

Freedman, Russell. Children of the Great Depression.  ISBN 0547480350

Hesse, Karen. Witness. ISBN 0439272009

Peters, Stephanie True. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic. ISBN 0761416366

*Other books about dealing with relocation, friendship, and family:

Curtis, C. P. (1999). Bud, not Buddy. ISBN 0385323069

DiCamillo, Kate. Because of Winn-Dixie. ISBN 0763644323

Giff, Patricia Reilly. A House of Tailors. ISBN 9781400090556

Ryan, Pam Muñoz. Esperanza Rising. ISBN 043912042X