From the back cover:
Abilene Tucker feels abandoned. Her father has put her on a train, sending her off to live with an old friend for the summer while he works a railroad job. Armed only with a few possessions and her list of universals, Abilene jumps off the train in Manifest, Kansas, aiming to learn about the boy her father once was.

Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it's just a worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers a hidden cigar box full of mementos, including old letters that mention a spy known as the Rattler. These mysterious letters send Abilene and her new friends on an honest-to-goodness spy hunt, even though they are warned to "Leave Well Enough Alone."

Abilene throws all caution aside when she heads down the mysterious Path to Perdition to pay a debt to the reclusive Miss Sadie, a diviner who only tells stories from the past. It seems that Manifest's history is full of long-held secrets. What will happen if they are finally revealed?

This book won the 2011 Newbery Medal and is one of my favorite Newbery Medal winners. I love the dual stories being told from 20 years apart and how they relate to each other. Great characters and a good mix of humor and seriousness.

This book was mailed today as part of iwillrejoice's ABC Authors Book Rings - US version - Letter V.

I have chosen this fine book from the V author bookring which recently arrived in Maine. Looking forward to reading a Newberry Award novel for young adults! Thanks for offering it up!

Clare Vanderpool's young adult novel Moon Over Manifest won the Newbery Medal (best book for young adults) a few years ago, most deservedly. This is the second book I have read recently set in Kansas, where I was born but didn't really grow up. Manifest is an imaginary town where young Abilene has been sent by her father Gideon.. a town where he supposedly lived even though she can find no traces of him in the town's memories. Peopled with many remarkably well-wrought personalities and set against the backdrop of the final year of WWI and the terrible Spanish influenza and later in Depression era 1936, a tale of longing and loss as well as of hope, immigrant realities that ring true today, it has a satisfying development via the stories Abilene is told by the diviner Hungarian woman Miss Sadie, mysterious and yet key to the entire town's memories. There are many mini-mysteries that Abilene and her newfound girlfriends "solve" via the stories, their own spying, and the mementos found in a box under the bed in her room at Pastor Shady's (what a suggestive name!). It is a delightful read.

on the bench near the entrances....