Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

I feel very lucky that my oldest still lets me read to him. It doesn't happen every night, but we take the time when we can to sit together on the couch and I read aloud from some book that we both agreed on, often him grudgingly. Last night we finished Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. It's a beautiful, magical, uplifting book about one girl's quest to change her family's fortune. The novel is about storytelling and I was delighted when all the stories came together at the end. It is a Rebecca Caudill nominee, which is an award in Illinois where the children vote for the winner. There is a list that comes out in May or June and voting is sometime in early spring. The last couple years my son and I have tried to read as many of the nominees as we could. This year so far the only other nominee we've read so far is Kekla Magoon's The Rock and the River. (A magnificent book!) Last night I asked my son which he would say was better or that he liked more. It was a tough pick for him, but eventually chose Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which is funny because he admitted he never would have read it on his own... which is why it's so great we still read together. He is exposed to great books he loves that he'd never read on his own.