“Moon over Manifest”

“Moon over Manifest” by: Clare Vanderpool 2011 Newbery Winner

I actually read this in 2020. I don’t know why I chose this book to read then it just sounded interesting, the story being that of a girl named Abilene Tucker and set during the Great Depression in the 1930’s.
It was set up as a bit of a mystery and went back and forth between her time and back when her father was a child.
Abilene’s father had to make the hard decisions to send her away to live with family while he worked because he didn’t really have a choice in where he worked; he just had to work wherever there was work and that was not always safe for a child. And Abilene just wants to stay with her father and doesn’t really understand why he is sending her to basically the most boring place on earth. She soon learns though that there is some excitement in the town and starts unraveling a mystery of not only the town but also her father’s past.
This was a bit of a hard book to read, although the story did hold my interest. The problem I had with the book that made me have to keep taking breaks reading was actually the timing of when I read it. While the part of Abilene is set in the 1930’s the part of her fathers past is set in 1917 and during the Flu Pandemic, which was eerily close to what was going on in 2020, which made the book at times seem to real. I did really enjoy it though once I got through it.

Does someone die? We are dealing with a flu pandemic in this book so… Yeah.