Moon over Manifest
by Clare Vanderpool
Abilene Tucker, a twelve-year-old girl, who has lived most of the life on the move with her father, Gideon, arrives in Manifest, Kansas, her father's 'home town' very unsure about whether she wants to be there. While checking out the former saloon/church that she will be living in, she discovers a hiding place under the floorboards in her room. Inside the hiding place is an old cigar box containing some letters and a few odd objects of seemingly no value. When Sister Redempta, the local school teacher and midwife, assigns Abilene to write a story, due in the fall, Abilene has a hard time believing that this town is any different than the dozens of other towns she has past through. She soon learns differently. A run-in with the local Hungarian 'diviner' leads Abilene eighteen years into the town's past and into the life of a young boy named Jinx and his friend, Ned as well as a town full of people each with their own story to tell. 368 pages.
