Crossing Stones »

HELEN FROST, the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, is the author of numerous books for teens, including Keesha’s House, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, The Braid, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and, most recently, Diamond Willow, a Children’s Indie Next List Great Read. She lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Maybe you won’t rock a cradle, Muriel.

Some women seem to prefer to rock the boat.

Eighteen-year-old Muriel Jorgensen lives on one side of Crabapple Creek. Her family’s closest friends, the Normans, live on the other. For as long as Muriel can remember, the families’ lives have been intertwined, connected by the crossing stones that span the water. But now that Frank Norman—who Muriel is just beginning to think might be more than a friend—has enlisted to fight in World War I and her brother, Ollie, has lied about his age to join him, the future is uncertain. As Muriel tends to things at home with the help of Frank’s sister, Emma, she becomes more and more fascinated by the women’s suffrage movement, but she is surrounded by people who advise her to keep her opinions to herself. How can she find a way to care for those she loves while still remaining true to who she is?

Written in beautifully structured verse, Crossing Stones captures nine months in the lives of two resilient families struggling to stay together and cross carefully, stone by stone, into a changing world.

VOYA

Beautifully written in formally structured verse, Frost's story spans nine months from 1917 to 1918. Each of three characters' poems, with their own distinct rhyming schemes and visual shapes, tell about their lives growing up in two families living on either side of a creek in rural Michigan. Muriel has just graduated from high school and dreams of something more. Her slightly older friend and neighbor, Frank, has finished basic training and is sent to Europe to fight in World War I; her younger brother Ollie lies about his age so he can enlist and join Frank; and her best friend Emma, Frank's sister, is content to some day become a wife. To help her suffragette aunt recover after being in jail, Muriel travels to Washington DC, and a whole new world is opened up to her, one in which she can make a difference. Although warned by family to be careful with voicing her opinions, Muriel learns that sometimes it takes protesting and education to help effect change. Frost deals with many issues, including the horrors and experiences associated with war: death, mutilation, separation, how the home front coped; gender roles and women's suffrage; the Spanish influenza outbreak; and discovering what to do with one's life. At the end in "Notes on the Form," Frost explains the formal structure of each person's verse, which is amazingly done. This beautifully written, gently told story can be used for classroom discussion in social studies and English, or simply for leisure reading. Reviewer: Jane Van Wiemokly