Customer Reviews

All the Blue Moons at the Wallace Hotel

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comes a book this wonderful! This book made me laugh and cry and think. I loved the characters, particularly Wallace. Phoebe Stone uses language so beautifully and weaves a great story with surprising and gratifying twists. I strongly recommend this book to all girls who love ballet, or who have a sister, or who have a best friend...in fact, all girls!

I started reading this book one evening and was hard pressed to put it down! This is a great 'stay in when the weather is bad and read' kind of story. And it's not just a children's story either; I am a mature adult with no children of my own. I recommend this book to anyone with a passion to achieve a dream and an obstacle to overcome in accomplishing it!

The story and its characters is simply captivating! It only took a few pages before I found myself attached to the three main characters: Fiona, Wallace, and Kip. Their personalities take on real dimensions very quickly; I felt as if I actually knew them...they were so believably real! They most certainly could be young people any of us may have met in this present day.

Each of the children has an endearing uniqueness: Wallace - a precocious, unconventional, idealistic, and sensitive child - unaware of her desire for value until it is 'given' to her. One is immediately drawn to her character because she is so easy to like, even love...it was as much for her I wanted to read this book as it was for anyone or anything else in the story! Kyp provides all the boldness, daring, eagerness and self-assuredness oft equated with a youthful spirit. With his genuine honesty and acceptance, he is the balm that adds balance to the triangular relationship of these three children. Finally, Fiona's narration of this tale allows us to connect with her observations, her memories, her feelings, her desires, her hopes, her longings. She has been created with vividness and vulnerability! I think every child with an overriding dream in their heart can relate to her character...as can many adults. I know I did!

Phoebe Stone's hauntingly beautiful ALL THE BLUE MOONS AT THE WALLACE HOTEL stirs the heart and imprints the mind. Award-winning author and illustrator of WHEN THE WIND BEARS GO DANCING, this is Stone's first foray into the land of intermediate to middle school readers and she arrives radiant and appealing. Emotionally, her novel reads as if drawn from deep personal experience. Artistically, the story is vivid with the kind of imagery only an author with a tap root into art itself could manage. The book is a coming-of-age tale cast with luminous characters, hauntingly lovely descriptions and a poignant resolution that is both uplifting and plausible. I especially urge school librarians to purchase ALL THE BLUE MOONS and give book talks that include dialgue segments, interior monologues and scenic descriptions. Sensitive children will be drawn into the world of Fiona Hopper, her iconoclastic family and their responses to a world that first shuns then draws them to its breast. Burgess Needle, Librarian, Safford Magnet Middle School, Tucson Unified School District