Shannon's Library

LET’S GET EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK!

William, Edmund and Anna are orphans at a most inconvenient time. They have money, but no one to take care of them. World War II is gearing up and evacuations of children from London to the countryside are beginning. Could this be a way to find themselves a guardian? With a rather preposterous plan in place, the children join the evacuation. The siblings find themselves bouncing from one home after another. Just as they start to think they’ll never find someone to take care of them, they discover love is often found in the most unexpected of places. This delightful novel is chock full of sweetness, love and nostalgia. If you’re looking for a book to both tug at your heartstrings and make you smile, “A Place the Hang the Moon,” by Kate Albus is the one for you!

Shannon’s Rating — PG

Keep reading below for my full review!

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LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK!

“William, Edmund and Anna knew, somewhere deep in the place where we know things that we cannot say aloud, that they had never lived in the sort of home one reads about in stories – one of warmth and affection and certainty in the knowledge that someone believes you hung the moon.”

William, Edmund and Anna are searching for a home. They are searching for a person who will love them so much that they think they “hung the moon.” The search for this person and this home, will not be easy. Our reader hearts will break over and over for these siblings as they try to find someone to love them. But their difficult journey is not without joy. The relationship between these siblings is heartwarming and something truly special. This whole book is something truly special!

William, Edmund and Anna are readers. When they find themselves in an unknown town, feeling lost and uncertain, they stumble across the village lending library. Walking into that library felt like something close to home.

One of my favorite parts of this book was the nostalgia it brought to me, as it mentions many of my beloved childhood books, such as; “Anne of Green Gables,” “Winnie the Pooh,” “The Wind in the Willows,” “The Call of the Wild,” “The Story of Ferdinand” and most importantly, “A Little Princess.”

If I had to pick one book that defined my childhood reading, it would be “A Little Princess,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I adored this book and read it multiple times. The fact that “A Little Princess” plays an important role in “A Place to Hang the Moon,” made me love this story even more. When the siblings are evacuated from their London home, they each pick one book to bring with them. Anne picks “A Little Princess,” and by so doing, she stole my heart!

I love beautifully written books; when you read a sentence, or a paragraph and it makes you stop and absorb the beauty of it.

Here’s one such part of “A Place to Hang the Moon” that made me smile…

“You’ve experienced a variety of bedtime stories, I’m certain. You know their magic. A well-chosen bedtime story sets you on the path to the dream you most need to have. This story, this night, was unlike any other. As the children sank into sleep, the words of the familiar rhyming tale were comfort and tenderness, ritual and home. A sort of prayer. A sort of lullaby. It set them on the path to dreams that felt rather like hope.

This endearing book is worth all the hype I’ve been hearing about it. You will smile. You will cry. You will feel all the feels. Every once in a while, an author gets a book JUST RIGHT and Kate Albus did JUST THAT! I hope you read it and love it as much as I did!

(And I dare you not to cry when these children finally find the person who believes they “hung the moon!”)