Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Themes: Middle School, Friendship, Death, Families
Grade Level: 6-8
Curricular Connections: Social Studies (U.S Geography), Religion (prayer, death)

Walk Two Moons is a story in which a character relates another story all the while flashing back to yet another story.

Story #1 - Sal is traveling across the United States from Euclid, Ohio to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho with her grandparents to see her mother. Sal's mother left her and her father because she needed to find herself and she hasn't returned. As they travel Sal tells...

Story #2 - After Sal and her father moved to Euclid, Ohio, she met Phoebe Winterbottom, a girl with an overactive imagination, a mother with a secret who also disappears, a neighbor with a voice like dead leaves blowing named Mrs. Cadaver, mysterious messages on her doorstep, and a lunatic. While Sal tells her grandparents the story of "Peeby," Sal flashes back to...

Story #3 - Life in Bybanks, Kentucky was wonderful when it was Sal and her parents. The lived on a farm where Sal considered the animals, trees, fields, and barn part of the family. Sal recounts the loss of her stillborn baby sister, her mother's leaving, and the news that her mother would not return.

Classroom Suggestions:

1. As Sal and her grandparents travel across the country, their path is easily tracked on a United States map. Local places of interest mentioned in the book could be researched such as Wisconsin Dells; Pipestone, Minnesota; Mount Rushmore; the Missouri River; and Coeur D'Alene Lake.

2. Students in Religion class could discuss why Sal says she prays to trees on her trip.

3. Religion class discussions on death and dying - both our own and those of loved ones - could be discussed. During the book, Sal loses a baby sister (stillborn), her mother, and her grandmother.