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APPLE MOON -- Completed Manuscript, 65,000 words APPLE MOON took third place in the middle grade category of the 2006 Smart Writer's "Write it Now!" competition and finalist judge, Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of TANTALIZE and ETERNAL, described selecting the top winners as "getting a sneak peek into the next generation of children's literature stars!" Apple Moon, a historical novel set in 1911, is partially based upon the true life accounts of Orphan Train Riders. In her book, Placing Out in America, Marilyn Irvin Holt states that "a prevailing misconception of the system is that all of those placed out were orphans. Most were not, having at least one parent living." These "half-orphans" were left with lingering ties to their families, while in the midst of trying to forge a new life. Apple Moon explores this territory in a gritty story that follows twelve year old Leonard Finley as he struggles to redefine home and family. Leonard Finley remembers home. It was a place where he was once safe and loved; a place he belonged. Yet, with the loss of the family farm to debt collectors, followed quickly by his father's death in a work-related accident, Mama is forced to abandon Leonard and his brother, Gerald, in a New York City orphanage. Once there, Leonard is thrown into the fight of his life as he soon butts heads with a tough, street-wise bully and discovers that he has little control over his fate when a surly nun decides that he and his brother will ride the Orphan Train to a new life. Piece by piece, Leonard's old life is stripped away. Utterly alone, Leonard has become "a cast-off boy in cast-off clothes." And just when all hope of ever being reunited with his family again is lost, his mother returns and presents Leonard with the ultimate choice. Will Leonard return to the mother he loves? Or will Leonard choose to stay with the couple who have earned the right to be called family? |
Paperback 10-10-06 Buy now! |