Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle's mother has disappeared. While tracing her steps on a car trip from Ohio to Idaho with her grandparents, Salamanca tells a story to pass the time about a friend named Phoebe Winterbottom whose mother vanished and who received secret messages after her disappearance. One of them read, "Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins." Despite her father's warning that she is "fishing in the air," Salamanca hopes to bring her home. By drawing strength from her Native American ancestry, she is able to face the truth about her mother. Walk Two Moons won the 1995 Newbery Medal.

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-9AIn this Newbery Award book by Sharon Creech (HarperCollins, 1994), 13-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle travels west with her Grams and Gramps to Lewiston, Idaho, the destination from which her mother did not return. As Sal entertains her grandparents with stories of her friend, Phoebe, who sees "lunatics" around every corner, threads from many life stories are seamlessly entwined. This pilgrimage wonderfully mirrors the journey of discovery that is adolescence, as Sal's search for the truth about her mother becomes a journey of discovery about much more. In vividly described incidents both humorous and poignant, everyone's "story" is told. The reading by British actress Kate Harper is crisp and well-paced, so that the layered, complex style doesn't confuse listeners. Harper creates appropriate and wonderfully individual voices for everyone, especially the irrepressible Phoebe. The rhythms of the reading effectively reflect the rhythms of the story's back and forth motion and its lyrical language.AMary Arnold, Medina County District Library, Brunswick, OHCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
This Newbery Award-winning story tenderly intertwines threads of love, loss and growth. Thirteen-year-old Sal, journeying with Gram and Gramps to find her mother, tells the story of Phoebe, whose mother disappears and then returns. Eventually, Sal realizes that underneath Phoebe's story lies her own. Harper's insightful narration shows the depth of her relationship with the story and enhances its beauty. With warmth and awareness, she reveals Sal's deepest thoughts. Softly and tenderly, she shares Sal's memories of her mother. With sagacity and humor, she gives us Gram and Gramps. Listeners 12 years old and up will recognize this as a story that should be heard, not just read. R.M. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Gr. 7-9. Thirteen-year-old Sal Hiddle can't deal with all the upheaval in her life. Her mother, Sugar, is in Idaho, and although Sugar promised to return before the tulips bloomed, she hasn't come back. Instead, Mr. Hiddle has moved Sal from the farm she loves so much and has even taken up company with the unpleasantly named Mrs. Cadaver. Multilayered, the book tells the story of Sal's trip to Idaho with her grandparents; and as the car clatters along, Sal tells her grandparents the story of her friend Phoebe, who receives messages from a "lunatic" and who must cope with the disappearance of her mother. The novel is ambitious and successful on many fronts: the characters, even the adults, are fully realized; the story certainly keeps readers' interest; and the pacing is good throughout. But Creech's surprises--that Phoebe's mother has an illegitimate son and that Sugar is buried in Idaho, where she died after a bus accident--are obvious in the first case and contrived in the second. Sal knows her mother is dead; that Creech makes readers think otherwise seems a cheat, though one, it must be admitted, that may bother adults more than kids. Still, when Sal's on the road with her grandparents, spinning Phoebe's yarn and trying to untangle her own, this story sings. Ilene Cooper

From Kirkus Reviews
During the six days it takes Sal's paternal grandparents to drive her west to Idaho in time for her mother's birthday, she tells them about her friend Phoebe--a story that, the 13-year-old comes to realize, in many ways parallels her own: Each girl had a mother who left home without warning. The mystery of Phoebe's more conventional mother's disappearance and its effects on her family and eventual explanation unfold as the journey, with its own offbeat incidents, proceeds; meanwhile, in Sal's intricate narrative, the tragic events surrounding her mother's flight are also gradually revealed. After Sal fell from a tree, her mother carried her back to the house; soon after, she bore a stillborn child. Slowly, the love between Sal's parents, her mother's inconsolable grief, and Sal's life since her departure emerge; last to surface are the painful facts that Sal has been most reluctant to face. Creech, an American who has published novels in Britain, fashions characters with humor and sensitivity, but Sal's poignant story would have been stronger without quite so many remarkable coincidences or such a tidy sum of epiphanies at the end. Still, its revelations make a fine yarn. (Fiction. 10- 14) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

ANNOTATION

After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"How about a story? Spin us a yarn." Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. "I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned."Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!"And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic.

As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold—the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother.

In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.

Winner of the 1995 Newbery Medal

A 1995 ALA Notable Children's BookSchool Library Journal Best Book of 1994Winner of a 1994 Bulletin Blue RibbonA Notable Children's Trade Book in the Language Arts (NCTE)Winner of the 1997 Heartland Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
Winner, 1995 Newbery Medal
Notable Children's Books of 1995 (ALA)
1995 Notable Trade Books in the Language Arts (NCTE)
Children's Book Award for Longer Novels (Great Britain's Federation of Children's Books Groups)
Outstanding Books of 1994 for Middle School-Aged Teens (V)
Best Books 1994 (SLJ)
Bulletin Blue Ribbon Books 1994 (C)

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

The struggle of thirteen year old Salamance (Sal) to understand and deal with her mother's disappearance unfolds while on a cross-country trip with her eccentric grandparents. Sal tells them the story of her friend Phoebe whose mother has also left home, but in reality it is her own story. A funny, mysterious, and touching novel. Newbery Award winner.

Children's Literature - Susie Wilde

The Newbery Award for best young adult novel is the story of Salamanca Tree Hiddle who is traveling with her odd, but caring grandparents to find her mother and her own healing. By the story's end, she uncovers the truth. Her mother is dead and she has begun a new journey towards acceptance. The committee should be credited for recognizing the beautiful lyricism of the book. The main character is a poetic thirteen year old who feels at odds when her father "pluck[s] her up like a weed"and takes her to Ohio where the "houses were all jammed together like a row of birdhouses." The entire book sparkles with word images, expressed with intelligent metaphor and description. The award could also have been given because Salmanca Hiddle is proud of "the Indian-ness of her blood" in this era that is quick to leap on multi-ethnicity. Despite the lyricism of the writing, poignant themes of acceptance amid change, and interesting characters, the numerous characters and plots will leave young adult readers reeling. Four plots and subplots weave in and out of each other and eccentric characters pop up at every turn in the book. I doubt many children will relate to any of the characters and they might be confused by the preponderance of twists and turns. Only the strongest will persevere in finishing.

Children's Literature - Jan Lieberman

Salamanca Tree Hiddle, 13, believes her mother will return before the tulips bloom. During a car trip from Ohio to Idaho with her grandparents, true originals, Sal relates all that has happened the past year after her mother's sudden departure from home. A story within a story, Sal tells about Phoebe Winterbottom, her charismatic friend, who exaggerates, who believes she is being stalked by a "lunatic," who avoids cholesterol, unless it's her mother's brownies, and whose mother also has left home. Themes of love, life, death, and relationships are at the core of this story which is playful, imaginative, and satisfying. Awarded the 1995 Newbery Medal.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9In this Newbery Award book by Sharon Creech (HarperCollins, 1994), 13-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle travels west with her Grams and Gramps to Lewiston, Idaho, the destination from which her mother did not return. As Sal entertains her grandparents with stories of her friend, Phoebe, who sees "lunatics" around every corner, threads from many life stories are seamlessly entwined. This pilgrimage wonderfully mirrors the journey of discovery that is adolescence, as Sal's search for the truth about her mother becomes a journey of discovery about much more. In vividly described incidents both humorous and poignant, everyone's "story" is told. The reading by British actress Kate Harper is crisp and well-paced, so that the layered, complex style doesn't confuse listeners. Harper creates appropriate and wonderfully individual voices for everyone, especially the irrepressible Phoebe. The rhythms of the reading effectively reflect the rhythms of the story's back and forth motion and its lyrical language.Mary Arnold, Medina County District Library, Brunswick, OH

AudioFile - Robin MacFarlane