“Moon Over Manifest,” a debut novel by Clare Vanderpool, the 2011 Newbery Medal winner, is an excellent book for ages 10 to 14. “Moon Over Manifest” has small and large mysteries, interesting characters and enough plot surprises to keep readers guessing right up to the end.

    “Moon Over Manifest” is set in the Great Depression* and tells the story of Abilene Tucker, a 12-year-old whose father sends her for the summer to Manifest, a Kansas town populated by bootleggers* and coal-mining immigrants. There she solves a longtime mystery with the help of locals.

    The Newbery award, widely considered the most prestigious* honor in children’s literature and an inevitable* boon to sales, was announced by the American Library Association at its midwinter meeting.

    Vanderpool said she wrote “Moon Over Manifest” over five years, beginning in 2001, stealing of time while raising her four children. As part of her research, she traveled to Frontenac, Kansas, in the southeast corner of the United States, a town she called “the bootlegging capital of the Midwest.” There she read newspaper articles on microfilm at the library and scoured old yearbooks helpfully supplied by locals.

    “As I started doing research, that’s when the story started to take off,” Vanderpool said. “It really is the story of a young girl looking for clues* of her father, wondering if he’s coming back to get her and trying to figure out for herself what home means to her.”(SD-Agencies)