The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

One thing I miss about working in a bookstore is being near the kid's books.  I always enjoyed walking into that space and looking at all of the great stories on the shelves.  I'm pretty sure if I'd had the opportunity to see so many kid's  books when I was a youngster I'd probably have danced around and twirled a bit through sheer excitement.  

I realized as I started reading The Girl Who Drank the Moon that I had read Kelly Barnhill's earlier novel, The Mostly True Story of Jack years ago when it first came out in 2011.  I loved that book; it took place in Iowa, and was very unusual and magical.  What an imagination Kelly Barnhill has--what a gift!

I picked up this novel because it had just recently won the Newbery Award and I was curious.  Whenever I read a teen or young reader novel, I have to constantly check my inner voice and basically tell it to shut up.  I have to remember who the intended audience is, and that they are reading from a much more innocent, non-adult place.  I think it will do me a lot of good to read more young reader and teen books!

So, to the novel.  The Protectorate is a town that is filled with sorrow.  It's always gloomy, the sun never shines, and the people live very poorly.  The Elders and the Sisters run the show, and they have a yearly tradition that feeds more sorrow into the atmosphere (and keeps people under control):  once a year, they take the youngest baby in the village, and leave it in the forest as a sacrifice to the witch that lives there.  This keeps the witch from coming to the village and wreaking havoc on everyone.  It keeps them safe.  This year, a mother fights to keep her child, and is deemed crazy and taken to the Tower, where she is imprisoned by the Sisters.  The child is taken to the forest and left there.  

Here's the kicker:  The Elders have made it all up.  They leave the baby in the forest to die from exposure or, worse yet, animals.  There's no witch, as far as they're concerned.  It's just a way to keep control of the village.  Very teen dystopian!  

Here's the other kicker:  there really is a witch, Xan, who lives in the forest with her friends Glerk, the swamp monster, and Fyrian, the little dragon.  She finds the babies every year, and takes them to the other side of the forest, into the towns and villages there, and gives them to loving families.  She has no idea why they leave the babies in the forest, but she takes care of them and saves them from certain death.  This time, when a baby girl is left, Xan hesitates to take her to the villages for adoption.  Feeding her moon magic, she gives the baby too much, and the baby becomes magical.  Xan decides to keep the baby for herself, names her Luna, and raises her as her grandmother in the forest. Xan knows when Luna turns thirteen her magic will really kick in, and it will be time for Xan to give all her magic and die.  After all, Xan is 500 years old, and ready to be done.  

Of course, this plan doesn't work out that well.  Luna is a powerful little girl, and the magic is leaking out of her constantly. She has no way to control it, so Xan puts a spell on her that will keep the magic tamped down, and make it impossible for Luna to learn about magic or use it until she's thirteen.  

But that's not all that's going on in this story.  There's a young man in the village who struggles with the yearly tradition, and seeks a way to reconcile his feelings and find a solution.  He's got hope, a tiny spark of hope, that things will change.  But the change is not something that the Elders or Sisters want.  

I wondered if a child reading this novel would understand the undertone of powerful people doing bad things, and the oppression of people.  That the face some people put on in public is not who they really are, and it can hide some bad stuff.  That those people you think are bad just by hearing stories or seeing their physical self, actually are very kind and loving people who got a bad rap through stories and gossip.  They are the true healers and good people. 

I did enjoy this novel; I do wonder at the length for young readers.  I'd say advanced readers would swallow it up pretty quickly, but younger kids would struggle a bit.  The writing is fantastic, and the plot is pretty clever.  You can almost feel the magic oozing off the pages.  I enjoyed how the story unfolded and concluded.  Worthy of the Newbery.  Hope to read more of Kelly Barnhill; if she ever wrote an adult novel I'd grab it without hesitation. 

Rating:  4/6 for a beautifully written young reader novel about family, love, magic, sacrifice, and the evil that lurks behind those who are supposed to be looking out for all of us.  

Available in hardcover and e-reader.  

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The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

A Bad, Bad, Moon

I've read the first two novels in the Susan Beth Pfeffer series about a meteor that hits the moon and causes massive chaos on Earth.  Life As We Knew It takes place in a small town in Pennsylvania.  Miranda is a teenage girl, living with her mother and two brothers and having a typical teen life.  One  night in May, everyone gathers to watch the meteor hit the moon.  Scientists have assured everyone nothing will come of it, and there's a party atmosphere all around the world.

This lasts about as long as it takes for the meteor to hit the moon and the moon to be knocked off course and move closer to the earth.  Suddenly, the moon is looming in the sky, massive tsunamis wipe out cities along the coasts, and craziness abounds.  Miranda has a very smart   Mom who realizes that they have to  prepare for a long summer with sporadic electricity and probably food shortages.  As the summer slowly creeps by, the news that trickles through is not good--earthquakes, volcanoes, and continued flooding are creating chaos.  The sun is lost behind a slow moving cloud of volcanic ash, adding to the food shortages and panic.

What I loved about this novel is the way Miranda acts like a typical teen.  At first, no big deal.  Then, as the months go by, she comes to understand people are dying, people (including her own family) are starving, and the world will never be the same.  I asked my niece, who's fifteen and has read the books, if she "got" the seriousness and sadness of the novels.  She immediately said "Yes! I think about my family and what I would feel if this was happening to me."  Phew.  The kid gets it.

                                              The second book is The Dead and the Gone and it follows Alex and his sisters Bri and Julie as they cope with the same catastrophe in New York City during the same months that Miranda is living in Pennsylvania.  I found the second novel to be even more riveting and just heartbreaking.  Alex's father is in Puerto Rico for a funeral, and his mother was called to the hospital to help in the crisis.  The problem here is that Puerto Rico is wiped out by a tsunami, and the subways were flooded by the influx of water into New York City--people were trapped and drowned.   Alex doesn't know if his parents are alive or dead.  He's a 17 year old who has to take on the responsibility of survival for both himself and his two younger sisters without any parental guidance.  It's a nail-biter of a story filled with images of a city under siege and people doing whatever they have to in order to get food and survive.

These books are great teen reads, but don't hesitate to pick them up and read them yourself.  Discussing them with  a teenager is enlightening.  And, it's pretty creepy that a few nights ago we experienced a meteor flashing by in the sky (it landed in Wisconsin) and the Icelandic volcano is spewing so much ash it's prohibiting air travel in Europe.  My niece and I laughed about it this morning--and we both kinda got a little freaked out at the timing of reading the books and what's happening now.  She's picked up the third in the seriesThis World We Live In and will probably finish it tonight.  I will read it in the next week and let you know.  

These novels are excellent reads and will keep you up at night.  So run--I say run! to you local bookstore and pick them up.  After you've finished, and stopped watching the sky nervously, and stockpiled your canned goods,  relax and go about your life.  

                                                 

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A Bad, Bad, Moon