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I really wish somebody would have sat me down at the beginning of the year and said, “Look Natasha.  There’s this book that I really think that you’ll like a lot.  I know you keep seeing the reviews for it but yet you haven’t really paid attention.  Seriously, go read Shooting the Moon by Frances O’Roark Dowell.  You won’t regret it.  It’s awesome.”  I have to admit, I was ignoring this book for so long and now I really, really wish I hadn’t.  I haven’t related in personal terms to a book like I did to Shooting the Moon for such a long time.  I read a library copy of this book and I’m going to be sad when I have to return it.  This is a book that has to go into my permanent collection. It’s just a short 163 pages, but it’s packed with story.

Jamie Dexter knows all about the army.  After all, she is 12 3/4, not to be confused for 12.  Jamie’s father, the Colonel, is the chief of staff at their home, the army base at Ford Hood, Texas.  TJ, Jamie’s older brother plans on joining the army as soon as he’s out of high school and go to Vietnam.  Jamie can’t think of anything finer than to be a soldier and would the do the same thing if she could.  So when TJ actually does join the army, she becomes very confused when their father is upset and tries to talk him into going to college instead.  Isn’t joining the army that very best thing that he could do?  Why is her father so upset?

She’s thrilled though and can’t wait to get TJ’s exciting letters from the warfront.  Instead his first letter isn’t a letter at all.  It’s just a roll of undeveloped film that he asks her to develop.  Doesn’t he know that she doesn’t know how to process film?  Jamie volunteers at the rec center on the base and plays countless games of gin rummy with Private Hollister.  He mentions that there’s the darkroom and introduces her to another soldier who can teach her how to develop the black and white film.  At first, when she sees the images, she doesn’t understand why he chooses to  shoot what he does.  But slowly, the reality of the war sinks in.  She realizes that he could actually get hurt and die.  War is no longer what she thought it was.

Now her friend Private Hollister is in danger of being shipped overseas and she doesn’t want him to go.  She tries to convince her father not to sign his orders.

That night I spread out TJ’s Vietnam photographs on my bed.  The soldier in the wheelchair, the bandaged stump of what had been his right leg pointing straight at the camera.  A terrified child, naked to the waist, hands to his ears, running down the road, a helicopter hovering in the distance.  The soldier ont he stretcher, the wound soaking his bandages chest.  A hollow-eyed GI staring at the camera, the skin burned and scarred across his cheeks and forehead.

I left them all on the Colonel’s desk, fanned out like a hand of cards, where he would find them in the morning when he sat down to drink his coffee.

Shooting the Moon was a multi-sensory experience for me.  It brought so much of my own personal life into the story that I couldn’t help but relate to it on so many different levels.  My own brother is in the National Guard and has been ever since college.  He’s traveled to well over 25 countries including Iraq twice.  I know what it’s like to have a brother in harms way and pray each night that he will arrive home safely.  I’ve seen how hard it is on his wife and four children.  I know what it’s like to have him gone for Christmas and Thanksgiving  And then to eagerly await in the crowd as his plane touches down.  What’s even more peculiar is that my brother is also a photographer.  He brings home countless number of photos from his travels.  A lot of sightseeing and a lot of his bleak surroundings.  His wall at home is covered with amazing framed photographs of the world.

As if that’s not enough, I really related to the photography part of Shooting the Moon.  Having my degree in photography and having spent a lot of time in a darkroom myself, I could smell the chemicals that Jamie used while developing her film.  As she was in the dark taking the film off of the roll and onto the reel, I could feel with my hands the same sensation of trying to do the same thing completely blind.  The frustration of having to start over when it messes up.   I felt as thought I was in front of the enlarger in the dark, focusing my image, inserting the paper, and waiting and watching as I saw the image come forth in the trays of chemicals.   I loved being back in there with Jamie and I now realize just how long it’s been since I’ve been in the darkroom.  Man, I want to do it again right now.

Jamie’s father loves to garden.  Besides photography and reading, my third love is gardening.  During the spring, summer, and fall you will find me outside every day tending to my flower garden and vegetable garden.  A couple of years ago, I even received my Master Gardener’s certificate, one of the the most enjoyable things I have ever done.  There is something about being out there with the sun on your shoulder and the dirt under your hands that is amazing.  It’s soothing.  It’s satisfying to see the beauty that you have helped to bring out in the world around you.  I could completely understand why the Colonel would come home from a long day of being a soldier and work out in his garden.  It was his way to do something for himself, a stress reliever and a way to bring some beauty into a world of chaos and war.  I loved seeing him work out in the garden.

I loved Shooting the Moon. Highly recommended.  Don’t miss it.  Seriously.

Links of interest:  Frances O’Roark Dowell’s website.
Genre:  Juvenile Historical Fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Atheneum.  January 29, 2008.
Hardcover, 176 pages.  ISBN 1416926909
Shooting the Moon is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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