Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

This was the Newbery winner for 2011, and I feel that is was a deserving choice. Abilene is a twelve-year-old girl who is sent by her father to live with his old friend in the small town of Manifest, Kansas in the summer of 1936. Prior to this Abilene had led a transitory life with her father--riding the rails and traveling between hobo camps while her father worked at odd jobs. Abilene is not entirely pleased about coming to live in Manifest. There is an air of mystery and secrets around her father's sending her there. She's not really sure why he chose to send her away or what his relationship to the town of Manifest is. And the townspeople are close-mouthed about him. Who is he?

A bullet ridden sign outside the town declares that Manifest is "a town with a past." Over the course of the summer, Abilene finds herself working hard to uncover that past. She finds old letters and trinkets, makes friends with old-timers who tell stories and in general snoops around until she finds out how she is connected to that past.

The book is told in chapters alternating between 1936, Abilene's present-day, and 1917, as she uncovers what happened that year. This book is supremely charming. I loved the flipping back in forth in time, as if from past to present, although to the modern reader, both are past. The history covered in this book is new. Manifest, although in the heart of the midwest, is a multi-ethnic town, immigrants having been drawn from all over Europe to work in the mine there. There is a real sense of community and a playfulness in 1917 Manifest that Abilene's digging helps them to recover in depression-riddled 1936. Recommended mostly for fans of historical fiction, but any eager young reader would enjoy this.