Genre
Moon Over Manifest is a work of historical fiction. Vanderpool based the fictional town of Manifest on the town of Frontenac in southeastern Kansas, where her maternal grandparents grew up. Her grandparents' names are in Sister Redempta's classroom roll call (they're Noah and Mary Hughes Rousseau), and postmaster Ivan DeVore is named for her grandfather's cousin, who was the postmaster of Frontenac. Velma was the name of his sister.
Vanderpool supplemented family lore with a great deal of research, studying old newspapers, yearbooks, letters and journals from both 1936 and 1918. She read books on a multitude of historical subjects: World War I, life in Kansas towns and on the road during the Great Depression, prohibition and bootlegging, immigration and the Spanish influenza of 1918. She learned old folk songs about trains and riding the rails, and, on one of her research trips to southeastern Kansas, she found a wrought iron gate with all sorts of strange metal objects welded into it!
Despite all her research, Vanderpool did not depend on particular events from her sources: "It was not so much specific stories that found their way into the book; it was more stories from that time period, the tone of that place and those people." (Shelf Awareness interview)
Vanderpool supplemented family lore with a great deal of research, studying old newspapers, yearbooks, letters and journals from both 1936 and 1918. She read books on a multitude of historical subjects: World War I, life in Kansas towns and on the road during the Great Depression, prohibition and bootlegging, immigration and the Spanish influenza of 1918. She learned old folk songs about trains and riding the rails, and, on one of her research trips to southeastern Kansas, she found a wrought iron gate with all sorts of strange metal objects welded into it!
Despite all her research, Vanderpool did not depend on particular events from her sources: "It was not so much specific stories that found their way into the book; it was more stories from that time period, the tone of that place and those people." (Shelf Awareness interview)
Narrative Technique
Moon Over Manifest is notable for its layered narrative. We get the story of the book from four sources:
- Abilene's first-person narration
- Miss Sadie's narration of Jinx's story
- Hattie Mae's News Auxiliary column
- Ned's 1918 letters to Jinx
Themes
The Extraordinary Through the Ordinary
Clare Vanderpool said that what she would like young people to take away from Moon Over Manifest is that looking beyond the ordinary can reveal the extraordinary -- that in her book, the ordinary people in an ordinary town revealed themselves, through their story, to be beautiful and extraordinary.
The Importance of Community
Moon Over Manifest shows that when people come together, they can make change. In the 1918 story, the immigrant miners and their families are isolated by language barriers and ethnic customs. Arthur Devlin schedules shifts so that each group works only with its own, and even church services are separate for the different nationalities. But when the miners, their families, and the other townspeople work together to execute Jinx's plan, they force Devlin to negotiate with them to improve working conditions. In the process, they share their histories and customs with one another and learn the joy and the efficacy of working together. They finally become a town.
Similarly, although Abilene concocts the "Remember When" contest in order to identify the handwriting of the mysterious Rattler, it accomplishes much more. It allows the people of Manifest to come together once again, this time to remember and share the stories of their common past. By doing so, they heal the wounds of all the losses the town suffered in that past-- Ned's death in the war, the deaths of so many loved ones from the flu, and the flight of Jinx from the town.
The Transformative Value of Story
In Moon Over Manifest, storytelling is essential both to forming community and to healing wounds and becoming whole -- for the town and for the individuals in it.
Moon Over Manifest overflows with tales told: Miss Sadie tells stories of Ned, Jinx and the town's past, confirmed by the stories in Hattie Mae's News Auxiliary; Ned's letters tell stories of the trenches and of his memories of Manifest; Abilene retells Miss Sadie's stories to Lettie and Ruthanne. On Abilene's only day of school, Sister Redempta assigns her the task of writing the story of her summer, and in the course of doing so, of manifesting the truth of her father's past, and of her own connection to the town.
Abilene is excited to go to Manifest because she has heard all of her father's stories about the bustling and colorful mining town. When she arrives, she's disappointed to see that Manifest is worn-out, hot and dusty. But the longer Abilene lives with the warm and kindly people of Manifest, hearing stories about Jinx, Ned and the townspeople from Miss Sadie and reading about them in the Hattie's column, the more she begins to feel "like I wasn't just reading about them. It was more like remembering them. As if somehow their memories were becoming mine."
Clare Vanderpool said that what she would like young people to take away from Moon Over Manifest is that looking beyond the ordinary can reveal the extraordinary -- that in her book, the ordinary people in an ordinary town revealed themselves, through their story, to be beautiful and extraordinary.
The Importance of Community
Moon Over Manifest shows that when people come together, they can make change. In the 1918 story, the immigrant miners and their families are isolated by language barriers and ethnic customs. Arthur Devlin schedules shifts so that each group works only with its own, and even church services are separate for the different nationalities. But when the miners, their families, and the other townspeople work together to execute Jinx's plan, they force Devlin to negotiate with them to improve working conditions. In the process, they share their histories and customs with one another and learn the joy and the efficacy of working together. They finally become a town.
Similarly, although Abilene concocts the "Remember When" contest in order to identify the handwriting of the mysterious Rattler, it accomplishes much more. It allows the people of Manifest to come together once again, this time to remember and share the stories of their common past. By doing so, they heal the wounds of all the losses the town suffered in that past-- Ned's death in the war, the deaths of so many loved ones from the flu, and the flight of Jinx from the town.
The Transformative Value of Story
In Moon Over Manifest, storytelling is essential both to forming community and to healing wounds and becoming whole -- for the town and for the individuals in it.
Moon Over Manifest overflows with tales told: Miss Sadie tells stories of Ned, Jinx and the town's past, confirmed by the stories in Hattie Mae's News Auxiliary; Ned's letters tell stories of the trenches and of his memories of Manifest; Abilene retells Miss Sadie's stories to Lettie and Ruthanne. On Abilene's only day of school, Sister Redempta assigns her the task of writing the story of her summer, and in the course of doing so, of manifesting the truth of her father's past, and of her own connection to the town.
Abilene is excited to go to Manifest because she has heard all of her father's stories about the bustling and colorful mining town. When she arrives, she's disappointed to see that Manifest is worn-out, hot and dusty. But the longer Abilene lives with the warm and kindly people of Manifest, hearing stories about Jinx, Ned and the townspeople from Miss Sadie and reading about them in the Hattie's column, the more she begins to feel "like I wasn't just reading about them. It was more like remembering them. As if somehow their memories were becoming mine."