Moon Dancer

Accompanying their cousin on a camping trip, Mira and her older sister, Jenny, are surprised when Emily's attractive friend, Max, joins them, and the group senses the powerful presence of an ancient civilization in the canyon area of their journey.

Grade 6-9?Miranda, 15, and her sister Jenny, 17, accompany their cousin Emily and her college friend Max on a backpacking trip to Southern Utah. Emily's project is to scour Katie's Gulch for the examples of Hisatsinom (Anasazi) rock art that a pioneer woman recorded in her journal. Miranda, the narrator, who's definitely on the shore of a brave new world, explores the landscape, her sexual longings, and powerful connections to the past. Jenny, who's gorgeous and knows it, clashes with Emily, who's all business?confident, bossy, and effective. Max is the perfect image of a beautiful young man?he's full of possibility, and he and Mira become mirrors for one another. Rostkowski is wonderfully conscious of balance. Her style is friendly, frank, and light, but it's also spiritual, physical, and intense. She celebrates what is natural and joyful, but also accepts what is awkward and painful. Indeed, it's when Mira forgets her sense of balance and becomes consumed by desire that she slips and falls. And it's because she's grown in her understanding of herself that she knows exactly how to get up and keep going. The narrative is filled with that mixture of peace and heat and clarity and strangeness that hums in the air in Southern Utah. This coming-of-age novel is truly refreshing?it's mystical, and yet it's down-to-earth at the same time.?Vanessa Elder, School Library Journal
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This romantic adventure traces the discoveries of 16-year-old Mira when she joins her sister, college-student cousin and cousin's friend, Max, on a four-day hike researching rock paintings sketched in a pioneer woman's journal. Trekking through a Utah canyon with her three companions, Mira ponders the lives of those who once populated the area and feels an almost mystical connection to them as she reflects upon her own past. Although Rostkowski's (After the Dancing Days) most introspective passages are poetic and insightful, characterizations and some plot details are less than convincing (e.g., Mira's insistence on walking a mile and a half on a broken foot). The protagonist's infatuation with athletic, level-headed Max is all too predictable while her ambivalence toward family members (her flirtatious older sister, Jenny, and their mother, who seemingly "ran away" from home) lack development. Readers may feel that resolutions occur before conflicts are clearly established. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 7^-10. Fifteen-year-old Mira accompanies her sister Jenny, cousin Emily, and Emily's handsome friend Max on a backpacking trip into southern Utah's remote canyons. Led by descriptions in a pioneer woman's journal, the foursome are on a quest to find ancient rock art. Swept in by the rugged beauty of the natural environment and deeply touched by the images of women in the art, Mira feels a connection to the canyon women, both Native American and pioneer, who preceded her. As she falls in love for the first time with Max, her feelings are heightened by the rock artists' varied images of women's lives. Rostkowski's romantic plot is nicely entwined with the story of a young woman's growing awareness of self and of her connections to the archetypal feminine images she sees in the ancient art. Combining adventure, discovery, and first love, this well-written novel can serve as an excellent bridge between YA romance and mainstream adult fiction. Merri Monks