Moon-Watch Summer

by Lenore Blegvad

While unwillingly spending the summer on his grandmother's farm where there is no television on which to watch the moon walk, Adam realizes that sometimes one must consider others before oneself.

Genres: Middle Grade, Fiction, Childrens

63 pages, Hardcover

First published January 23, 1972

Reviews

[Barbara Brien · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because there was a cat on the cover. But cats played very little part in the book, which was about an 11 year old boy coming to terms with missing out on seeing the moon landing on TV.

[Allyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, I get it, it's important to think of other people first. But even considering the fact that this was written in 1972 (and I'm saying this as a latchkey child of working parents growing up in the late '70s and early '80s) this is a ridiculous situation for a child to be put in. First - and this was one of the weirdest things for my kids understand as they read it - Adam has not seen his grandmother in seven years, and his little sister Jenny has never met her. My kids were like, "what kind of grandmother is this?!" Then, after a train ride by themselves (yes, an 11yo in charge of a 4yo on public transportation) they are left alone at their grandmother's house after just two days, I think? while she accompanies her dying horse to the vet's in the city.

No, Grammie, that's not how you do it! Especially when you don't own a vehicle and are dependent on taxis in a small town (and what, you've lived here forever and you have no friends you can call to give you a ride home? To be with your grandchildren? Who are ALONE IN YOUR HOUSE?) and you are leaving a moon-walk-obsessed 11yo in charge of a 4yo!!!!

Or maybe it's not Grammie's fault at all, maybe it's the fault of Adam and Jenny's parents - what is so damn urgent that you have to pack up instantly and throw your children on public transportation ALONE to go and hang out with a person one has never met and the other only dimly remembers for two weeks? And remember, Grammie doesn't have a damn car so what if she's late at the rural train station and the kids are sitting there on the platform? Those tuna fish sandwiches Mom so thoughtfully gave them will only be a distant memory at that point.

Now let's talk about the neighbors: two rich guys who live in the house down the valley, and who tried to bully Grammie and Gramps (when he was still alive) into selling their property so they could use it for their ski resort, and who then, when G&G wouldn't sell, tried to use lawyers to yank the land anyway. Adam has met them and when they realize who he is they try to lure him into their house, along with Grammie, so they can...what? Grammie never considers the fact that they may be trying to apologize for being vile capitalists, which admittedly is pretty unlikely anyway, but instead just says to Adam basically, "sure, you can go over to these guys' house in the middle of the night to watch the moon thing but I'm not going with you and neither is your little sister." She's giving him permission to go hang out with two dudes she doesn't know, like or trust. At night. Alone.

OK so yes, I get that Blegvad is trying to teach children to understand what is truly important in life, and hurray for Adam for deciding that his little sister is more important than his interest in the most significant scientific breakthrough in the history of humanity, but the poor kid never should've been put into this situation. I really question the heavy-handedness of the lesson, and I wonder what contemporary children reading the book (children who probably witnessed Apollo 11's mission) thought about it. Our copy of the book is a Weekly Reader hardback, which tells me it was probably in a lot of school libraries, and judging by the title alone I can see how plenty of kids probably picked this one up because they were as moon-obsessed as Adam. I can't imagine how disappointed they must've been.

I work in the Youth Services department of a public library and at least once a week I have a conversation with a patron about how some of their favorite classic books have kids in these weirdly neglectful situations that they have to get themselves out of. Of course there has to be something for the kids to work against, and in a lot of modern Juvenile fiction the things they're working against are much worse than mere neglect. But the funny thing is that kids who have read stuff like Lemony Snicket and Harry Potter are offended by what they consider to be neglectful parents in these older books!

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wonder how long we've had this

[Mariana · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a quick read about an hour for me. It was written in 1972. It is about the moment man first walked on the moon and an 11 year old realizing what was most important in his life.