Once, in a Town Called Moth

July 1, 2016
Ana's move from an isolated Mennonite colony in Bolivia to Toronto is both a culture shock and an opportunity for Ana to search for her mother, who disappeared 10 years earlier.Alternating chapters compare snapshots of Ana's life in Colony Felicidad with her adaptation to modern city life--from seeing ethnic diversity to public school. The white 14-year-old's focus on emotional relationships in both settings reveals universal truths about human nature's highs and lows. In the colony, everyone knew each other and greeted each other with affectionate nicknames. Kindness is also found in much larger Toronto, as two white neighborhood teens shepherd Ana through her grade nine year. Conversely, both settings also have sinister sides. Understanding her mother's disappearance requires facing the abuse and potential lawlessness that exists within Colony Felicidad, while Toronto's dangers are evident in Ana's musings about an unsolved Toronto kidnapping and her private navigation of potentially inappropriate attentions from her French teacher. Lyrical writing imbues simple scenes with complex emotional undercurrents, as when a character slides "a plate of dumplings onto the table before snapping apart two chopsticks and jabbing one into a soft, sauce-speckled belly." The motions feel almost casually violent, slyly suggesting untrustworthiness. It's these descriptions that truly develop the novel's mystery-laden tension. Truly outstanding literary moments distinguish this quiet search for identity. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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August 1, 2016

Gr 7 Up-Anneli and her father are running. Or maybe they are really chasing. Anneli's mother left their Mennonite colony in Bolivia when Anneli was five. Now she and her father have arrived in Toronto, searching for the woman who left them behind. But is that the reason they really left? The teen is faced with trying to belong in a new place that has rules she does not understand while discovering the truth about her parents, herself, and what happened one night in a town called Moth. Told in alternating chapters that dart from the past in Bolivia to the present in Toronto, the story consists of threads that seem to have no connection until readers are presented with the final pieces. The author adeptly transforms 14-year-old Anneli from a sheltered Mennonite girl to a growing, more worldly young woman. Focused on a single event and its shape on a family, the narrative slowly reveals to Anneli and readers far more than she ever looked to find. The secondary characters are less developed, especially Anneli's father. While the title and premise of the book seem to suggest a great mystery to be solved, this works better as a coming-of-age tale. VERDICT An additional purchase for collections in need of accessible titles about teens struggling with religious beliefs.-Elizabeth Speer, Weatherford College, TX

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