Richie’s Picks: MOONLEAPERS
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: MOONLEAPERS by Margaret Peterson Haddix, HarperCollins/Quill Tree, September 2025, 320p., ISBN: 978-0-06-339256-4
“Maisie dug her phone out of her pocket again and flipped it face up. Two lines of type had appeared on the lit-up screen, under an unknown number.
And what they said were:
Hey diddle diddle
Are you ready for your riddle?”
“Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone, in these
Time passages
I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight”
– Al Stewart (1978)
Twelve-year-old Maisie McGraw doesn't know her Great-Aunt Hazel. The last time the two met, Maisie was a one-year-old baby. But now old, bedridden, and institutionalized in a nursing home, Great-Aunt Hazel has gifted Maisie her cell phone. Along with the phone, she also sends Maisie a book that seems to have no writing in it, titled Guide for Moonleapers.
Shortly thereafter, Maisie, her parents, and two younger sibs, depart Ohio and move to Maryland for the summer. This, so that Mom can manage Great-Aunt Hazel’s financial affairs. They are going to live in Great-Aunt Hazel’s house, on the grounds of the Carriage Lane Senior Center. The house comes with a cat who often seems to perform impossible feats that only Maisie can observe.
Meanwhile, semi-comatose Great-Aunt Hazel is lying in a room in the nursing facility, more or less within shouting distance of the house.
“Cat the Great stood and stretched and then stepped carefully around Great-Aunt Hazel’s legs and torso and leaped past her right arm. The cat settled in again, nestled against Great-Aunt Hazel’s shoulder.
It made Maisie think that there may have been a time when Great-Aunt Hazel walked around with Cat the Great on her shoulder like a pirate with a parrot.
And maybe that time wasn’t completely in the past?
‘You’re trying to tell me something, aren’t you, Cat?’ Maisie asked. ‘Or maybe…teach me something?’
Great-Aunt Hazel weakly lifted her left hand, reaching out.
‘You want me to…,’ Maisie began.
Tentatively, she brushed her fingers against Great-Aunt Hazel’s. To Maisie’s surprise, Great-Aunt Hazel closed her hand around Maisie’s, clutching tight.
Maisie leaned closer.
Great-Aunt Hazel raised their joined hands to her face. She snuggled her face against Maisie’s hand, the same way Dora or Rufus might.
And then Great-Aunt Hazel smiled.
Maisie felt…not love, exactly. She didn’t know Great-Aunt Hazel well enough to love her yet. But she no longer saw her as an old (or super-old) person. She no longer saw her as just a shape in a bed.
‘You’re like me, aren’t you?’ Maisie whispered. ‘You’re…’
Was the word she was looking for just ‘alive’? ‘Human’? Was that all it was?
Or were Maisie and Hazel connected in ways Maisie couldn’t understand yet?”
From the start, mysterious, anonymous texts begin appearing on the gifted cell phone. They will lead Maisie into a world of mystery, magic, and more.
“Here’s your first riddle:
I got my name
From the color of a smile.
What am I?”
MOONLEAPERS is a blast! It’s a very fun can’t-put-it-down, mystery/fantasy read for elementary audiences. It includes some tasty little tidbits of world history. Maisie’s two young siblings, Dora and Rufus, are great characters. Their presence helps keep big-sister Maisie grounded in the family scene, balancing out her involvement with the mysterious texting and related action. In similar fashion, the Cat along with Great-Aunt Hazel’s dog–who Maisie’s parents spring from the local kennel–are also parts of the two sides of the story. They spend most of their time acting like normal parts of the family, but are also connected to what Maisie is going through.
This all builds into an opportunity for Maisie to change the world. Can and will she succeed in doing so?
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com