At Moon Shadow, an isolated campground, thousands have gathered to catch a glimpse of a rare and extraordinary total eclipse of the sun. Three lives are about to be changed forever: Ally: Ally likes the simple things in life-labyrinths, star-gazing, and comet-hunting. Her home, the Moon Shadow campground, is a part of who she is. She refuses to imagine it any other way. Bree: Popular, gorgeous (everybody says so), a future homecoming queen for sure. Bree wears her beauty like a suit of armor. But what is she trying to hide?Jack: Overweight and awkward, jack is used to spending a lot of time alone. But when opportunity knocks, he finds himself in situations he never would have imagined. Told from three distinct voices and perspectives, Wendy Mass weaves an intricate and compelling story about strangers coming together, unlikely friendships, and finding one's place in the universe.
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Ally, Bree & Jack are three young teens brought together by a solar eclipse. Ally's parents own and operate the Moon Shadow Campground, where people from all over the world come to experience star viewings, meteor showers and other celestial sights. It's pretty much the only life she's ever known and has developed her into a budding astronomer herself. The campground is also an hour from any civilization save one general store. Nearly all of Ally's education has been made up of books her parents collects and the one little black & white tv at that convenience store.
Bree is a budding fashion model and regular on the beauty pageant circuit. Her life is all about fashion, shopping and friends -- even if she comes from two scientist parents! It's the work of these two scientist parents that has them up and move Bree & her sister to Moon Shadow to take over operations there... but the news doesn't reach Ally until things are already in motion and neither girl is exactly enthused about her upcoming life flip. They try to team up to plan a way for each to keep their lives just as they like them.
"I plan on being a model one day," I explain... I brace for the words that will follow -- how it's such a shallow career choice, how I'll always have to worry about my looks. But that lecture doesn't come.
"Ah," the lady says, getting to her feet. "How wonderful to have a goal already. When I was your age, I knew nothing about the world or my place in it. I figured I'd be someone's wife, then someone's mother. It never occurred to me to be someone myself. I didn't figure that out till much later. But you've got a head start. Of course, you might still change your mind."
I shake my head. She heads slowly toward the entrance of the labyrinth. "You never know," she says. "Life is short, but it's wide."
*Bree talking with an elderly woman at the campground
Also crashing the party is Jack, an overweight loner kid who pretty much just keeps to himself, reading and sketching fantasy & sci-fi scenes. Jack gets news that he's failed his science class but if he agrees to help his teacher with research tied to the eclipse, Jack won't have to attend summer school. Naturally Jack agrees, though he has no clue what exactly is expected of him.
Over the course of the summer, leading up to the day of the eclipse, Ally, Bree & Jack all begin to develop friendships with one another even though their backgrounds could not be more different. Ally learns how to successfully socialize, Bree slowly starts to learn there's more to people than what's in their closet or on their face. Jack, thanks to Ally's non-judgmental approach to their friendship, finds some self-confidence.
All around this is just a cute coming of age story about kids leaving their early childhoods, entering their teens, trying to figure out what all the craziness suddenly floating around in their heads means. It's fun to see each character emotionally develop over the course of the novel and become better people than when they were introduced. They don't leave the story perfect, but you get a good sense that these characters in real life would be on the right path to becoming some pretty decent people all around. Bree got pretty irritating at times but I liked that she does have some growth later on. I could see bits of my own childhood self in Ally & Jack, which helped me really feel for them and their storylines. The nice thing about having such varied main characters is that it's likely to appeal to a wide range of middle grade readers who may see themselves in at least one, or maybe a mix as I did. Plus, who doesn't like a good camp story! :-)
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