Moon over Manifest

Moon over Manifest

Book review by:

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

Adelaide Chatelain

With the help from Miss Sadie, Hattie Mae's News Auxilary, the memento's, Solletta, Ruthanne, Shady, and other members of Manifest, Abilene is able to bring all the facts and stories together to figure out how to right the wrongs before it's too late.

With new-found courage, Abilene makes the decision to do the only thing she can do to bring her father back, begin again, and this time do it right.

Remember When........

In order to figure out who wrote the note tacked to the tree house, Abilene, Soletta, and Ruthanne, set up a Remember when contest. Whoever was interested would write something they remembered from long ago. By doing this they could look at each persons handwriting and see if it matched the handwriting of the note on the tree house. They quickly learned who had written the note, and many valuable things about what Manifest was like years ago.

A silver dollar

letters and memento's

When Abeline is looking for a place to hide her few precious things in Shady's house, she comes across an old cigar box under the floor boards. In the cigar box there are;

A fishhook

A fancy key

Manifest, Kansas 1916

I remember when..

Old Letters

A hand-drawn map

And a tiny wooden doll

A cork

Miss Sadie tells the story of Jinx, a boy mentioned in the letters Abilene had found. As Miss Sadie's story unfolds, each of the memento's mysteriously intertwines into the story. Jinx's story is a sad one, and Abilene is quickly drawn in. As the story continues, Abilene learns more about the town of Manifest, its past, and why her father sent her there.

The path to perdition

Abilene looses her fathers precious pocket watch while on a spy hunt with her friends. When she goes to look for it, she finds a gate and welded on the gate, is the word Perdition. Behind the gate is a path, leading to a dilapitated old house. She see's her pocket watch hanging

from the house's porch along with several odd wind chimes. When she tries to retrieve the watch, by standing on an overturned pot, she notices a figure on the porch swing watching her. Abilene gets scared, the pot tips and breaks, and Abilene runs.

FORT

TREECONDEROGA

Hattie Mae's News Auxiliary

When Abilene comes back to the dilapidated house to get her pocket watch back, the pocket watch is no longer on the porch. Thinking it might be inside, she tip-toe's quietly into the house. But just as she finds the pocket watch, the same lady (Miss Sadie) from the porch swing appears. After a short discussion, Abilene agrees that she will work for Miss Sadie for as long as it takes to pay for the pot she broke when she fell. Once she has paid off that debt, Abilene will get her pocket-watch back. Since Miss Sadie is a diviner, She asks Abilene what she wants to know. Abilene shows a few of the mementos and letters from the cigar box, and asks about her father. Miss Sadie starts to tell Abilene a story about the mementos. Abilene gets discouraged when nothing in Miss Sadies stories realtes to her father, but she keeps listening. As she works for Miss Sadie, Miss Sadie continues to tell the story.

Abilene finds a tree house in a tree behind Shady's house, and she claims it as her own. When Soletta and Ruthanne, two girls in Abilene's school class, come over, Abilene shows them the tree house and the letter that mentions the spy called the Rattler. They are so enthralled at the prospect of a spy in their town, all three go out on a spy hunt. When they get back to the tree house after spying on Mr.Underhill, there is a note tacked to the tree house that says:"Leave well enough alone." Abilene, Ruthanne, and Soletta become even more exited after reading the note, and they soon became close friends.

The characters

Hattie Mae Harper (Now Hattie Mae Macke) runs the Manifest Herald. She ran the News Auxiliary when Jinx-the boy from Miss Sadies stories- was in Manifest. Abilene often went to Hattie Mae's place to read some of the old magazines that were kept there. As Abilene read some of the newspapers from Jinx's time, she was startled to see that they matched Miss Sadie's story perfectly.

The Book

Manifest townspeople of 1936

• Abilene Tucker: a new girl in town
• Gideon Tucker: Abilene's father
• Solletta and Ruthanne: friends of Abeline
• Pastor Shady Howard: takes care of Abilene
• Miss Sadie: still a diviner
• Mr. Underhill: still the undertaker
• Mr. Cooper: the barber

Manifest Townspeople of 1918

• Shady Howard: saloon owner and bootlegger
• Jinx: con artist extraordinaire
• Ned Gillen: Manifest High School track star
• Hattie Mae Harper: journalist for the Manifest Herald
• The Hungarian Women: owner and operator of Miss Sadie's Diving Parlor
• Sister Redempta: Nun
• Ivan DeVore: postmaster
• Velma T. Harkrader: chemestry teacher and maker of homw remedies
• Mr. Underhill: Undertaker
• Hadley Gillen: Neds father
• Pearl Ann Larkin: duaghter of Mrs. Larkin, Neds girl.
• Finn: Jinx's uncle

Moon Over Manifest is a book about a twelve-year-old girl living during the great depression, named Abilene Tucker.

The only life Abilene ever knew, was a life of jumping trains, and patiently moving from place to place while her father scrambled to find work in whatever job he could find. That is, until her father sent her away while he worked on the railroad, to a place she has only heard about in her Fathers stories. A town called Manifest, Kansas. Abilene arrived there to find a run-down town looking nothing like the town in her father’s stories. Shady Howard, a pastor in Manifest, takes Abilene in. Abilene is greatly disappointed in the town, but she quickly becomes excited when she finds a hidden cigar box full of old mementos and letters, including a mysterious note mentioning a spy called the Rattler. Abilene and her new friends, head out on a spy hunt, even though they are warned to “Leave well enough alone.” With the help of Miss Sadie, a diviner, and a few other townsfolk, Abilene discovers the truth of the past of Manifest, and the truth about her father. With the new knowledge of the past, Abilene tries to fix the past, and change her father’s future, as well as her own.

Clare Vanderpool is an award winning author of Moon over manifest