Thirteen-year-old Salamanca Tree Hiddle's mother has disappeared. While tracing her steps on a car trip from Ohio to Idaho with her grandparents, Salamanca tells a story to pass the time about a friend named Phoebe Winterbottom whose mother vanished and who received secret messages after her disappearance. One of them read, "Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins." Despite her father's warning that she is "fishing in the air," Salamanca hopes to bring her home. By drawing strength from her Native American ancestry, she is able to face the truth about her mother.
Walk Two Moons won the 1995 Newbery Medal. Reading level: ages 9-12
The "double whammy" is a special lure used in the competitive bass fishing underlying the plot of this thriller by Miami journalist Hiaasen ( The Tourist Season ). Someone is cheating at bass fishing competitions, and people are getting killed. Enter R.J. Decker, former photojournalist and ex-con. Decker teams up with Skink, an unbelievable character who lives in a forest shack, eats road-killed animals, and reads Dostoyevsky (and turns out to be the ex-governor of Florida). Decker's an unlikely hero, always a step behind. Other characters include the usual corrupt TV evangelists, rednecks, smart black policemen, and betrayingly beautiful women.
At last, Henry Huggins's father has promised to take him fishing, on one condition. Henry's dog, Ribsy, has been in all sorts of trouble lately, from running off with the neighbor's barbecue roast to stealing a policeman's lunch. To go on the fishing trip, Henry must keep Ribsy out of trouble -- no chasing cats, no digging up lawns...and no getting anywhere near little Ramona Quimby, the pest of Klickitat Street.
