Book Review: "Emlyn's Moon" by Jenny Nimmo

SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY

When Nia and her family move from her farm to the city, she makes friends with a boy named Emlyn. But there seems to be a secret regarding his mother and her connection to Nia's friend, Gwyn.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Nia lacks confidence due to her siblings making fun of her. She is not musical or book smart like two of her sisters are. So perhaps she feels average by comparison.

Emlyn lives alone with his artist father in an old chapel. He eventually reveals his feelings about his mother and his mixed feelings about residing with his father.

Gwyn isn't the main character in this story. He becomes friends with Nia but doesn't get on with Emlyn. He plays an important role as he reveals to Nia about his Aunt (Emlyn's mother) and how his family was involved with her. Also he is important to the climax of the story.

Nain reveals information of the past and is the first one to encourage Nia.

PACING

The pacing of the story is slower. The only thing that helps is perhaps the suspense regarding Emlyn's mother and waiting for the blowback of one of Nia's lies to be uncovered.

UNWANTED

After returning to Emlyn and his father a second time, Nia suddenly feels unwanted. She says nothing but gets the impression that since she didn't bring her dog or her clothes (to be drawn in) that she is not good enough.

I understood the message that was trying to be given: Nia has no confidence in herself. But it felt way out of proportion. She barely knows these people to be able to read their motivations. It's not as if there was some misunderstanding. She just reads way too much into this interaction.

I felt the character would have been better served to overreact to something that could have more easily been misinterpreted.

PROMISE BROKEN-SPOILERS

Nia promises to Emlyn that he can have her dog but comes home only to see him already being taken by someone else. She is upset but instead of telling Emlyn keeps quiet on it. It reinforces her lack of confidence. She thinks of Emlyn learns she broke her promise then he wont want to be friends anymore.

I understood why she would do this, as children we often fear telling the truth if we do something wrong because we fear the anger we may receive. But I just kept coming back to the root of it and asking, why does she feel so unloved and unwanted?

EMLYN & NIA

Emlyn gradually comes to know Nia and confides in her about his mother. But their relationship suffers when Nia lies to him and he finds out about it.

EMLYN & GWYN

Since they both are cousins, you think they would get on or at least be acquaintances. But it seems there is something bad between them and they rarely speak. This is one major plot point that pushes the story.

NIA'S ART TROUBLES-SPOILERS

During the first part of the book, Nia's class is assigned an assignment that is open ended. She can write, draw, do anything artistic. But she doesn't feel like she is good at anything. So throughout the story she gets into trouble while trying to complete the project.

Firstly, by taking her brothers sock, cutting it, and then flushing it down the toilet to get rid of the evidence. It made no sense to me. Why wouldn't she have thrown it into the garbage and buried it so no one would have seen it?

I suppose she is just a kid but she came off as stupid. The second one was silly and involved her stealing but I could see her thinking she could get away with it.

MAGIC

Emlyn gets to see his mother through a spider web and Nia sees a reflection that is not her own. The first has a huge impact on the story while the second does not. Either way, magic takes a back seat in the story until the end.

NIA'S CONCLUSION

Nia's art project that she struggles with finally comes back at the end of the story. It serves to show she has grown as she actually succeeds and gets praise. While throughout the story, she struggles with her feelings of inferiority. I think it was supposed to be merely the icing on the cake, as her real accomplishments are regarding uniting two families while reuniting Emlyn with his mother.

EMLYN'S MOTHER-SPOILERS

When we finally find Emlyn's mother it turns out she is a little odd. She refuses to see her husband or son but it's only because she is embarrassed that she never leaves her house. She has become a shut in and doesn't seem mentally stable.

I am not quite sure why she turned out that way. I mean, it's hinted at that she left because she couldn't live in a house without electricity or something so supposedly her marriage unraveled because her husband refused to get a full time job to take care of his family.

And when Nia brings up the idea that she is nuts, Gwyn just brushes her off saying she was just protecting her baby like a mother hen. I found his view rather unbelievable.

EIRLYS' SEEDS-SPOILERS

Turns out that Eirlys planted seeds and the children of the other world must come back. I was surprised as this hadn't really been mentioned. It certainly didn't seem to be weighing on Gwyn's mind throughout the story.

CLIMAX

Gwyn reveals his fear to Nia about the children from another world. Together they set out to save Emlyn, who they believe is vulnerable. Finally, a family is reunited.

CONCLUSION

I found Nia and Emlyn both to be sympathetic characters, although I never quite understood why Nia lacked confidence so much. The broken family was an interesting dynamic but I do wish there had been some reference to it in the previous book. Just a sentence or two mentioning that Gwyn had a cousin at least.

I appreciate how Gwyn finally seemed to realize that the children from another world were a threat (as opposed to last time when he didn't understand this until the last few pages.)

Also, I found the reuniting of Emlyn and his family as anticlimatic, as I didn't even get to see it happen. It's merely summarized as an after thought, even though it had been painted as a crucial part of the story.

I give “Emlyn's Moon” two and half stars.