If you at all like children’s literature, please do yourself a favor and read this book. A Newbury Medal winner, this first offering of Clare Vanderpool’s will not disappoint. Geared toward the middle school ages, the book is written as a collection of scraps that weave together the life of Abilene Tucker, her father, Gideon, and the lives of the townspeople of Manifest, KS (a fictional place based on a real town in KS). When Abilene is sent to Manifest for the summer by her father, she has the sinking feeling he’s not coming back — so, in an effort to discover who her father is and to win him back, she sets out on a search to learn his past — and discovers the bittersweet memories of a town that is beginning to realize that the past it had thought would be best left behind actually holds the keys to reviving its rich community. A beautiful story of faith, community, redemption, and love, it is sweet without being cheesy or melodramatic. Nevertheless, I cried through the last three chapters. This is a book just waiting to be made into a movie.
One of the things I loved about this book, reading as a parent, was thinking about how to tell my own children “my story” as they grow up. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to pull off Gideon’s method, but I love how he did it!