Two heartwarmers

I read the next two books back to back--Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt and The Moon By Night by Madelene L'Engel.  The temptation to compare them is strong, but how is that going to be possible?


Both are told from the perspective of a female, a teenager on the verge of womanhood; both are written in third person but stick solidly to the heroine's point of view; both deal with the internal and external conflicts you endure when you're held closely in the arms of a loving family but needing to grow up and become your own person...without hurting anyone too much.

With all that in common, they are so drastically different as to defy comparison.

The Moon By Night, which is, incidentally, the only Madeleine L'Engel book I actually like, takes the heroine on a family camping trip around America.  Skunks, bears, and boys are the major difficulties.  Vicky is drawn into a love/hate relationship with a handsome but slightly disturbed boy she meets on the road.  Her curiosity about him--and about this "boy friend" thing in general--forces her to break apart from her smothering family.  Not very much apart, but apart enough to be alone and let young love work its will.  The romance should be boring but it isn't...if only I were fourteen again....

Dicey's Song stays in one spot, geographically, but emotionally it ranges far.  Dicey, who's been acting as mother to her two brothers and one sister, needs to learn to share the responsibility with her Aunt with whom they've come to live.  After all the years of shouldering the responsibility and worry alone, Dicey finally gets to be a kid...but it's not that simple.  Finding a balance between being a person and being the big sister--between letting go versus holding on--that is Dicey's journey.  The journey seldom gives her the chance to be a normal teenager, with friends, boys, and struggles at school.  But you keep hoping for her.

So here's my heart-thunk of what's different between the books.  The Moon By Night makes you slightly nervous along the way but you know everything's going to come right at the end.  Dicey's Song is warm and funny as the story unfolds, but you worry about just where it might end up.