Moonpenny Island

Starred review from December 8, 2014
“Some things in life change wham-bam, dramatic and sudden as a pin and a balloon. But usually, change is sneakier. More like that balloon leaking its air, deflating bit by bit.” Springstubb (Mo Wren, Lost and Found) follows Flor O’Dell’s search for sure footing as her safe, comfortable island life is rocked by change. Flor faces several potentially earth-shattering shifts in her family and friendships just as she’s entering sixth grade, each knock like “an invisible fist on the end of a long arm,” leaving her bruised and angry. Can friendship survive distance? Should she worry about her sister’s strange behavior? Will her parents stop fighting? Will Mama return to her big Spanish-speaking family? And who is that strange girl watching Flor everywhere she goes? While exploring familiar themes of the unavoidable changes of adolescence, the novel weaves complex layers of fresh, relatable imagery and charming characterization across education levels, cultures, and generations, beautifully teaching that our shared humanity is one thing that doesn’t change. Ages 8–12. Author’s agent: Sarah Davies, Greenhouse Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.

Starred review from December 1, 2014
When one of an inseparable pair of friends is sent away, the other's life turns upside down. Lake Erie's Moonpenny Island is a tourist destination in summer and a small enclave of familiar weirdness the rest of the year. Flor loves it, riding her bike like a trusty steed, imagining the infinite possibilities of her world. Flor can hardly believe it when Sylvie, whose family is practically royalty on Moonpenny Island, announces that she's being sent away to attend private school on the mainland. Further rocking Flor's unsteady world, her parents are fighting more than ever, using ugly words that twist daggers of fear into Flor, her little brother, Thomas, and older sister, Cecilia. When the unthinkable happens and Flor's Latina mother leaves the island too, Flor begins feeling less audacious and more uncertain. However, when she meets quirky new girl Jasper and her unconventional father, Dr. Fife, Flor learns what it means to really see the world around her as it is and not just the way she imagines it. Springstubb delivers a beautiful tale of friendship, family, loss and renewal. Her third-person narration is razor-sharp. The author delicately parallels Flor's emotional minefield with the stark absolutes of Dr. Fife's scientific study of trilobites. Poetic and poignant, Springstubb's tale of friendship, loss, hope and heartache is so fresh and honest it will resonate widely. (Fiction. 8-12)

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November 1, 2014

Gr 4-6-Flor and Sylvie are more than just best friends; "they are each other's perfect friend." But when Sylvie is suddenly sent away to live with relatives, Flor must fend for herself on isolated Moonpenny Island. Friends are hard to come by in such a tiny town, but Flor soon meets Jasper, the odd daughter of a geologist doing research on the island. Through the study of ancient fossils, Flor learns about the evolution of eyesight and applies her newfound knowledge to her own personal experience. She learns that, when dealing with people, eyesight can be clouded by preconceptions and judgment. Springstubb has written a heartwarming coming-of-age story, reminiscent of Kevin Henkes's Junonia (Greenwillow, 2011) and Jeanne Birdsall's "The Penderwicks" series (Yearling). The community of Moonpenny Island is both isolated and intimate; nature plays a major role. There is family strife in the story-alcoholism, physical fights, abandonment-but they are dealt with very gently. The language has a quaint, old-fashioned feel: young characters use phrases such as "despicable boy" and "birdbrained." The (over)use of exclamation points in the narration can be distracting, particularly at the story's denouement. However, sensitive readers will be able to relate to Flor's widening worldview when she perceptively remarks that "'no man is an island, ' but apparently eleven-year-old girls can be."-Laura Lutz, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2015
Grades 3-6 How can such a tiny island like Moonpenny hold so many secrets? Eleven-year-old Flor, bereft when her best friend Sylvie leaves the island for a new school, never imagined how these secrets would impact her life. Her sister begins dating the island troublemaker; her mother flees the constant bickering with Flor's father; and then there is the arrival of Jasper, the daughter of a geologist visiting the island to unearth trilobites. Jasper is decidedly different from anyone Flor has ever met, and she opens Flor's eyes to even more secrets of Moonpenny Island. Springstubb, author of Mo Wren, Lost and Found (2011), has a feel for the drama and trauma that consume the lives of girls like Flor, who discover that life is rarely tidy and that stories are often left incomplete. That acceptance of change is key to Flor's development, and her actions should also offer hope to readers who will find in her a character who thinks and feels and acts very much as they do.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2015
The tiny Ohio vacation spot of Moonpenny Island is "barely more than a lump of limestone," the perfect substance for the formation of fossils. And the island is lousy with fossils -- specifically, of trilobites from the Cambrian period -- as Flor learns when a geologist and his daughter come to explore. Flor, a sixth-grade townie (in fact the only sixth grader now that her best friend Sylvie goes to school on the mainland), becomes particularly fascinated with trilobites' eyes when she learns they were "among the very first creatures to develop" them ("Wait. Does that mean there were once creatures without eyes?"). Flor herself has flawless visual acuity but is, in some ways, as sightless as early tribolites, for she lacks the experience to see beyond her own perceptions. And there's a lot going on in her small, interconnected island community: her parents are fighting, her older sister is behaving strangely, her schoolmate Joe is engaging in odd antics. Springstubb (What Happened on Fox Street, rev. 9/10) carefully crafts her characters but occasionally hurries her resolutions with quick, climatic scenes. However, Flor's growing, if sometimes awkward, awareness of change and heightened understanding of those around her result in a unique protagonist who, like a fossil, creates an imprint that remains long after her story is finished. betty carter

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)