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    A Nearer Moon
    A Nearer Moon
    A Nearer Moon
    Ebook122 pages1 hour

    A Nearer Moon

    By Melanie Crowder

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    In a small river village where the water is cursed, a girl’s bravery could mean the difference between life and death in this magical story of “perseverance and hope” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) from the author of Parched and Audacity.

    Along a lively river, in a village raised on stilts, lives a girl named Luna. All her life she has heard tales of the time before the dam appeared, when sprites danced in the currents and no one got the mysterious wasting illness from a mouthful of river water. These are just stories, though—no sensible person would believe in such things.

    Beneath the waves is someone who might disagree. Perdita is a young water sprite, delighting in the wet splash and sparkle, and sad about the day her people will finally finish building their door to another world, in search of a place that humans have not yet discovered.

    But when Luna’s little sister falls ill with the river sickness, everyone knows she has only three weeks to live. Luna is determined to find a cure for her beloved sister, no matter what it takes. Even if that means believing in magic…
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtheneum Books for Young Readers
    Release dateSep 8, 2015
    ISBN9781481441506
    A Nearer Moon
    Author

    Melanie Crowder

    Melanie Crowder lives on the Colorado Front Range, where she is a writer and educator. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of the middle grade novels Parched, A Nearer Moon, and the Lighthouse Keepers series and the young adult novels Audacity and An Uninterrupted View of the Sky. Visit her at MelanieCrowder.com.

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    Reviews for A Nearer Moon

    3.5/5

    20 ratings5 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Took a little bit for me to get into. The main character is kind of bland.
      I like the cover and I like the way the two stories meet.

      It's alright.
    • 5/5
      In a small river village where the water is cursed, a girl’s bravery—and the existence of magic—could mean the difference between life and death in this elegant, luminous tale from the author of Parched and Audacity.Along a lively river, in a village raised on stilts, lives a girl named Luna. All her life she has heard tales of the time before the dam appeared, when sprites danced in the currents and no one got the mysterious wasting illness from a mouthful of river water. These are just stories, though—no sensible person would believe in such things.Beneath the waves is someone who might disagree. Perdita is a young water sprite, delighting in the wet splash and sparkle, and sad about the day her people will finally finish building their door to another world, in search of a place that humans have not yet discovered.But when Luna’s little sister falls ill with the river sickness, everyone knows she has only three weeks to live. Luna is determined to find a cure for her beloved sister, no matter what it takes. Even if that means believing in magic. . . .This book came out in September, 2015MY THOUGHTS:I received this book in exchange for my honest review.I’ve been on such a kick lately for middle-grade reads about sisters. Why? I don’t know, I don’t have one… lol. Maybe, it's the wanting of one most my life, or, maybe it's the fact that I suffered through three brothers growing up lol. :) Who knows...The cover on this book is WOWZA!The relationship between the sisters in this book is excellently written and very sweet! The book itself is about family relationships, family values and being true to oneself. It’s about love between sisters, self-sacrifice and acceptance.The author didn’t waste a single word writing this book. She had something to say and said it. No filler. Not only was she precise and pointed with her thoughts, she was graceful and lyrical in her voice and style. Plot flowed from one event to the next seamlessly and effortlessly. There were no huge surprises in this book, but it wasn’t about that, it was about the writing and the girl’s relationship.There is no guessing what emotion was being felt or expressed, as the author’s style is rich with meaning and characterization, and reads easily. You read about grief, and community life, about relationships and how to be strong when facing horrific odds.There’s a supernatural element to the story about the swamp where the community believes it is cursed and a creature of evil lurks below its surface. Luna, doesn’t believe this and is determined to find a way to save her sister.Rumor is that the swamp is cursed and a creature lives below the waters, but Luna doesn’t believe it. Luna prefers to side with science to heal Willow, but this doesn’t work. She then turns to dealing with the swamp itself by attempting to drain it of the putrid water, and she fails. As she slowly accepts that magic may be involved after all, becomes a believer, then she succeeds. Gotta love fantasy stories! It is not the end results that is the important factor, but the journey to self-discovery that eventually leads to peace. This is not just for Luna but for her entire family.The alternating between two perspectives, each building the story, developing character growth and enabling resolution at the end, is all done with brilliant insight.With the theme being sisterly bonds, Luna and Willow’s bond grows almost parallel to Perdy and Gia’s. You see the hurt through Luna’s and Perdy’s eyes and what losing a sister does to each. Each girl is driven by guilt.There are so many aspects to this story to enjoy: fairies, well-fleshed out characters, self-discovery, personal growth and understanding consequences. Love is the main factor, and what people will do for it.I really enjoyed the way the author meshed the two stories together and how the backstories of the two sets of sisters are all mixed up together mirroring their hope for the future.I absolutely loved this story!
    • 3/5
      When Luna's beloved sister, Willow, falls ill with the fatal river sickness, Luna will stop at nothing to save her sister's life, even if it means violating their mother's three never-to-be-broken rules: don't go past the bend in the river, don't go below the dam, steer far away from the slick."
    • 4/5
      Very sweet tale of the bonds of sisters whether they are human or water sprites ;).
    • 3/5
      I liked it--3 stars from me isn't bad, it's good, it's a positive, it's on the plus side--but I need a little more to push it from "liked it" to"loved it."

      It has a charming fairy-tale feel (I was reminded of good old Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen") and a marvelous precipitating incident at the beginning, so fresh and startling and sad and unexpected--that was great.

      The story is divided between two characters, and two much time was spent on one of them, in my opinion, while the other character, ultimately, didn't contribute to the happy resolution of the plot through any skill or other character trait--again, in keeping with the tone of fairy tales, where sometimes things just happen because the person accidentally touched it, or arrived at the right time, or had golden hair--you know the kind of story. But those stories are usually shorter than this, and I can be more forgiving. This is a short novel, but I think it would have been better as a tighter short story.

      Nonetheless, as I said, I liked it, but didn't love it, and will look forward to more by this author.

      (Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).

    Book preview

    A Nearer Moon - Melanie Crowder

    Prologue

    The river flows.

    It begins as a trickle deep in the heart of the jungle, in the thick, secret heart of the jungle. It surges and swirls, gorging on the breath of a thousand streams. The river, it bells, and it swells, and it flows, and a reed-thin girl on a push-pole boat skims silently by.

    Just beyond a stretch that wiggles like a crimped ribbon, a log jam stops the river in its headlong sprint. Long ago the dam formed, gathering storm-tossed sticks and rising, the water creeping inch by inch to bury the silty flats, to brush the shins of trees unaccustomed to getting their feet wet. The dam rose and a swamp was born. The pent up, penned in river dove deep underground, probing through tunnels of granite and caverns of crushed rock for a place to rise again to the surface, willful and wild.

    Out in the middle of the swamp, the water spirals in a lazy arc, collecting a scattering of leaf litter, a few vagabond insects, and a leisurely film of dust. A flat slick catches and holds the swill, holds still while the rest of the swamp moves in a slow waltz around it. A person who didn’t know this water might think the slick was just an eddy, caught and swaddled in a crook of the swamp’s arm. But the villagers, who live and breathe by the ebb and flow of the water, know to steer wide of the still spot. They know that something beneath pulls at the water, a creature that makes the water skippers tremble and the otters skitter for their dens.

    Year by year, inch by inch, the villagers raised the stilts that held up their homes, until they couldn’t remember anymore the sweet smell of a passing river, the eager slope of a riverbank, the sound of giggling water spilling over boulders and dancing over rocks.

    The villagers marked the time in two ways: before the swamp and after. What came before was good. And all that came after was not.

    1

    Luna

    At the edge of the swamp, rimmed round with tall marsh grasses and dotted with pulai trees dripping humid tears, a girl with long limbs and hair as dark as a moonless night stepped through the reeds and into her shallow boat.

    On the hill behind her, seraya trees rustled their leaves, and a blizzard of tiny yellow flowers spun through the air. To the west, the river spilled in; to the east, the dam held back the water. In the space between, her village perched over the sweltering swamp.

    Luna lifted a long steering pole and was just about to shove away from the shore when a smaller girl with the same black hair and gangly limbs called out as she ran down the hill from the garden plots.

    Take me with you! Willow shouted.

    Luna stepped one foot back on the shore to steady them both, reaching out a hand to help her little sister into the boat.

    You weren’t really going without me, were you? Willow wobbled, arms outstretched, toward the bow.

    Luna chuckled. As if her little sister would ever allow that.

    Willow sat cross-legged on the rough-hewn floor and rubbed the tiny pewter charm tacked to the bow for luck. She gripped the edges of the boat, her whole body twitching with excitement.

    Luna tested her weight and shifted the bundle of nets at her feet. With one solid push, the flat boat drifted out of the reeds, gliding between water lilies opening to greet the late morning sun. A haze of sticky, sweaty heat hung like a cloud of gnats over the swamp.

    Luna dipped her pole into the water. Hand over hand, she lowered it down until the smooth wood caught in the mud below, caught and held like a child curling her fingers into a lock of hair and gripping tight.

    Luna leaned out and pulled her pole away from the reluctant mud, hand over hand. Water trickled over her knuckles, streaming down her arms and drip, drip, dripping from her elbows, until the silt-drenched tip rose into the air, dropping the mud back where it came from.

    The boat wandered through a grove of waterlogged trees and under the village perched above. The huts were raised on stilts and strung together just above the waterline by walkways that swayed in the gentle winds swirling through the swamp. As they passed by, Granny Tu left her rocking chair and stepped to the railing. Her skin was wrinkled as a plum passed over by the pickers and left on the tree to wither, but her eyes were sharp and sparkling. She cupped a hand to her mouth. Bring me back a big one.

    You bet! Willow said.

    Most of the villagers were tucked into the shadows, away from the buggy morning, but Luna’s best friend, Benny, pushed back the shutters and leaned out the window of his hut to wave as they passed. His straight black hair hung like a curtain in front of his eyes, and he swept it away impatiently.

    Come over after, okay? he called.

    Luna nodded, waving in return.

    She steered away from the village and between the last set of pulai trees, weaving between their buttressed roots and gliding out onto open swamp. It was quiet except for the buzzing of water bugs and the bulbuls chattering in the treetops. Quiet and empty, with only her little boat moving on top of the water.

    How was school this morning? Luna asked.

    We did our plusses, up to a hundred. And I’ve got spelling lists to study tonight. Willow leaned back until she could see her sister’s face, upside down and swaying as Luna pushed her pole into the mud and hefted it back out again. You’ll help me, won’t you?

    Luna nodded. But Willow already knew the answer. She was the sun that the rest of them, Mama and Luna and Granny Tu, orbited around. It had always been that way. Maybe because she was so much younger than Luna, maybe because she was just a baby when Daddy died. Maybe because she was all giggles and mischief, dewy kisses and unkempt braids.

    What else? Luna asked.

    Lily’s gran brought lemon drops for snack. She told us a story of a wood sprite that lived in her rafters when she was little. They never once saw it, but if they so much as dusted the beam where its bundle-of-sticks house was, the milk would turn sour and vegetables would rot overnight. Willow shuddered with glee, slapping her hand against the rim of the boat. No, thank you. No sprites as houseguests for me!

    Nah, there’s no such thing as sprites, Luna said. She jiggled her weight from one foot to the other, just enough to set the shallow boat rocking. Not enough to tip it over—a boat wide enough to steer through the swamp was all but impossible to tip over—but enough to set Willow squealing in giddy protest.

    Luna poled to the wide mouth of the swamp where it met and slowed the steady push of the river. Just out of sight, the channel narrowed and the current picked up speed. Luna wasn’t allowed past the bend in the river. Her flat-bottomed boat wasn’t made for cutting through bumping, frolicking water. But some days, if she was lucky, a fish that didn’t know any better would wander a little too close to the swamp and find the back of her net.

    The boat slid into an eddy, and Luna cast her net out over the water. She wasn’t going to catch anything, not today, with Willow’s giggles startling the fish into the shadows. But on a day like this, when even the dragonflies seemed to tilt their wings to catch a little extra of the sun’s sparkle, empty nets were nothing to scowl at. Willow leaned over the edge of the boat and stared down into the clear water below. Luna kept half an eye on her sister, the other half on the net she flung out and back, out and back again, just for the rhythm of it, for the feel of the rope in her hands and the coarse wood under her

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