Moon and Me

Elizabeth moves to her grandparents house over the summer to "rediscover her roots". She meets Moon, aka Harmon Wells. He is 2 years younger than her, and on top of that, is a genius. Moon can't seem to leave Elizabeth alone, and enters her in a horse race. He conditions Elizabeth and her horse Lady Gray, and she gets to know him better. After a while, she is asked what she would like to achieve. She answers that she would like to have a relationship, particularly with a boy named Rick. Moon sets up everything so that Rick will ask her to the dance. What Elizabeth finally realizes (at the dance by the way), is that Moon wanted to help her because he liked her, and that he went through all that trouble of setting her up with Rick, and entering her in the horse race only to have her go off with Rick. She makes amends with Moon. And they resolve that they will see each other next summer. Moon and me is a heartwarming story. And a book you should read if you just want to feel good. I wish there was a sequel!

I first read this book about 10 years ago and it still lingers with me as one of my favorites. It's about first love and how it hits you when you're looking the other way. Sounds trite, but the poignant story and quirky characters will make you wish there was a sequel.

A terrific book about the emerging friendship between three not-so-typical teenagers and their loneliness in growing up. Seen through the eyes of fourteen-year old Elizabeth Jane who has moved constantly around the world. She has been dropped of by her parents to spent the summer with the grandparents she barely knows in the middle of the Iowa cornfields. She believes she's ready for her first love. Not that there is much chance of finding him in rural, small-town America with nothing much to do and no interesting people, according to worldly-wise, snobbish, francophile E.J. But she learns to reconsider. After meeting Moon, a boy who is only twelve years old and at once much too short and much too wise for his age. Moon, who tries so hard to fit in. She believes him unfit to be her friend, let alone her boy-friend! But it will be Moon who'll train her and her horse that summer to compete in the annual three-day-long endurance trail. And it will be Moon who arranges her first date with her first boy-friend. And after meeting undisturbed, cynical, sixteen-year old Angela, who tricks everyone in believing she does what they want but does only what she wants. Who doesn't care about fitting in. It's only at the end of summer that she realizes the magic of the moments the three of them had together and that they'll never return. She finally realizes her real feelings for Moon. But it's too late now to wish she had behaved differently.Written in a detached sort of way with poignant conversations. You can feel the special atmosphere. The first Hadley Irwin book I ever read, but it made me scramble for more.