Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sunday Book Review: Maggie Vaults Over the Moon

Maggie Vaults Over the Moon

Maggie Vaults Over the Moon arrived in my mailbox a little more than a week ago and I flipped it open, thinking I'd check out the first chapter or two and then put it on my to-read stack to be reviewed later. A chapter or two wasn't enough, however, I fell right into the story and it became my go-to book this week even though I had very little time for reading.

Right from the start, I was impressed by the setting of this story. Maggie is from a rural Kansas farm family and, except for the fact that she's from the other side of Wichita, much of the setting for this story could have been my own. I never got to drive a truck at harvest time, but I rode along enough when I was a kid that I could imagine myself bump-bumping along in the passenger seat right beside her. If the kittens on the way to the barn and the child's paradise of a hayloft well stocked hadn't already reeled me in, Maggie showing sheep at the 4-H fair entirely won me over. I was also the girl with lambs in 4-H and I was pleased that the author got every detail correct. 

The book opens with a tragedy that also felt immensely and deeply real. I shed a few tears and read quickly, eager to learn how Maggie would cope. The cover and the title were a clue, of course, but it became important to learn how she got there. I even spent an afternoon watching pole vaulters on YouTube because I had no previous experience with the sport and I wanted to be able to more thoroughly visualize Maggie's progress. 

Though the story was well-grounded in a Kansas setting, it had little sparks of the mystical, as well. I was inspired and would recommend this book to all of my young reading friends. It might be categorized as Young Adult Sports Fiction, but it is a story that I think readers of all ages will appreciate.



Maggie Vaults Over the Moon on Amazon

Author's Website

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