The Moon Within by Aida Salazar
Format/source: ARC/ALAMW19
Published: 26 February 2019
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Length: 240 pages
Genre: Contemporary middle grade verse
★★★★
Celi Rivera’s life swirls with questions. About her changing body. Her first attraction to a boy. And her best friend’s exploration of what it means to be genderfluid.
But most of all, her mother’s insistence she have a moon ceremony when her first period arrives. It’s an ancestral Mexica ritual that Mima and her community have reclaimed, but Celi promises she will NOT be participating. Can she find the power within herself to take a stand for who she wants to be?
Review
The Moon Within establishes on page one what kind of story its telling. In some ways, it’s a middle grade story we haven’t heard so directly for many years (young girl dealing with her period and other changes). In other ways, it’s a middle grade story we’ve never heard (Black Puerto Rican-Mexica girl dancing bomba and participating in an indigenous moon ceremony). The Moon Within explores colonialism, menstruation (frankly but not graphically discussed), reclaiming heritage, first crushes, gender identity, and friendship all in a way that’s highly accessible to middle grade readers.
Salazar navigates and relates each of these topics without overwhelming or preaching to the reader. The choice to write this novel in verse likely helps to keep it from becoming too dense. I admit I haven’t read a verse novel in probably 12 years (not since I was flipping through my friend’s copies of Ellen Hopkins). I am a prose reader through and through. But Salazar establishes a clear voice for Celi. She writes the first-person narrative voice of a middle grade protagonist, with poetics that don’t obscure. I wonder now if all middle grade verse novels have such defined characters and engaging narratives! I suspect The Moon Within is an exemplar of the form.
The next paragraph contains spoilers regarding Celi and Magda’s friendship. Skip to My Personal Response to avoid.
One of my favourite parts of the story is Celi’s friendship with her best friend Magda, who comes out as genderfluid halfway through the book and then identifies as a boy named Marco. Celi learns about this when she and her mother are invited to Magda’s house and Magda’s mother holds a ceremony acknowledging Magda’s identity as a xochihuah, ‘one who bears flowers’. Celi is surprised but supportive at first – until her crush on Ivan, who isn’t that nice, leads her to damage her friendship with Marco. This was personally infuriating for me to read about, but realistically done and I celebrated when Celi fixed her mistake. Marco’s body isn’t changing at the same rate as Celi, but he is celebrated equally alongside Celi in the moon ceremony. I would love to read a companion novel about Marco.
My Personal Response
When I was 11, I am pretty sure my main concern was roleplaying on the Neopets message board. I was not thinking about my body changing or my feelings about boys. If you had given me this story when I was in grade five, I wouldn’t have understood it at all. (Although I at least would have related with Celi wanting to keep her body private.) At first, I was uncomfortable with how Celi’s mother pushes her beliefs about menstruation and the moon ceremony onto Celi, but over the course of the novel, her good reasons for doing so become clear and she does give Celi the room to make her own decision.
The Bottom Line
As a novel in verse, The Moon Within is a wonderful option for readers as a nuanced and full narrative without the weight of a novel behind it. Of course, it could also be an especially important read for children experiences changes to their body or their gender.
Further Reading
Growing up, I never really understood coming-of-age books where the girls worried about their bodies, their bra size, their periods, or boys. I didn’t care about those issues and didn’t understand why the characters did. Still, I know some readers find books like this to be formative and I think that middle school readers are becoming more mature. I know plenty are “dating” (you know, where they don’t actually go out but they say they are dating) and certainly girls are menstruating earlier than in the past.
Yes! It seems like books that address such topics are becoming more needed and will be important for some readers.