Walk Two Moons

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Walk Two Moons  
Walk Two Moons.jpg
Author(s) Sharon Creech
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Young-adult fiction
Publication date June 30, 1994
Media type Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages 288 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN 0-06-023334-6
LC Classification PZ7.C8615 Wal 1994

Walk Two Moons is a novel written by Sharon Creech and published in 1994. It won the 1995 Newbery Medal.[1] It was originally intended as a follow-up to Creech's previous novel Absolutely Normal Chaos, however, the idea was changed after Creech began writing.[2]

Contents

[edit] Plot

The novel is narrated by a 13 year old girl named Salamanca Tree Hiddle (Sal). Sal's mother has recently left Sal and her father, and Sal's Gram and Gramps are taking her on a cross-country car trip to Lewiston, Idaho to see her mother in time for her birthday, hoping to bring her home with her home with her. Sal loves nature and was very close to her mother before she left. On the trip, Sal entertains her grandparents by telling a story about her friend in Euclid, Ohio, Phoebe Winterbottom, whose mother suddenly disappeared and left their family too, and about Ben Finney with whom Sal begins a tight relationship. Over the course of the book, as Sal's story unfolds and their car travels west, as she reveals more details about Phoebe's story, and why her story reminds Salamanca of her own.

[edit] Themes

The major themes in the book include grief, love, death, loss of a loved one, relationships [3], cultural identity,[4] and women's roles as mothers and wives.[5] The process of describing Phoebe's story and why her mother left helps Sal better understand her own mother's journey. [6]

Creech drew on her own background for many of the book's themes and images, including Sal's love of nature, her relationship with her mother, and the road trip to Idaho that frames the narrative.[6] In an interview, Creech said that she found the aphorism that gives the book its title ("Don't judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins") in a fortune cookie.[7][2]

[edit] Awards

In 1995 Walk Two Moons won the Newbery Medal, the United Kingdom Reading Association Award, and the United Kingdom's Children's Book Award. In 1996, it received the WH Smith Mind-Boggling Book Award. In 1997, it also won the Literaturhaus Award, Austria, and the Young Adult Sequoyah Award, Oklahoma, USA .[2]


[edit] References

Awards
Preceded by
The Giver
Newbery Medal recipient
1995
Succeeded by
The Midwife's Apprentice
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