Review for Moons and Junes:


by Elaine Hartley


I enjoyed the book very much. It is well written and very much suited to the age group of the main characters. I believe it has important things to say about alternative ways of thinking, living, and interacting with each other. Our current way of life is terribly destructive and unsustainable. It is crucial for us to examine alternative ways of living in the world and with each other. It is especially important to expose the very young to such ideas. They are going to need them. If I were still teaching language arts in a middle school I would try to include this book in my reading materials.

The characters were well thought out and their interactions and motivations believable. Most important, though, is the on-going description of life at Wild Wind. The book provides a lot of information about how the community arranges the tasks and work of the group and how members are expected to conduct themselves. Relationships among the characters, outsiders, the land, consumerism, and farm animals are all discussed. It is also important that these arrangements are situated within the context of time and that the need for change is a source of conflict. Communities and cultures change and adapt to new circumstances or information. They must adapt or die. Americans desperately need to explore this kind of thinking. This discussion is done within a framework of storytelling which is never didactic or overly preachy.

My only criticism is the story about Roxy and her pregnancy. I thought too much responsibility was laid at Roxy's door and too little at the community's door. Who was the male that impregnated Roxy and what happened to him? Perhaps I missed something.

        Reviewed by: Elaine Hartley, Filmmaker and Retired Special Ed. teacher

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by Howard Fenster:

Megan, a thirteen year old who lives in rural Iowa, doesn't want to be left with her grandmother while her parents are vacationing in Hawaii for two weeks in June. Megan convinces her parents that she would be happier staying with friends on a nearby farm. What she does not tell her parents is that this “farm” is Wild Wind, a “hippie commune.”

This is Megan's first visit to Wild Wind. Claire Garden, an experienced communard herself, devotes much of Moons and Junes to describing the look and feel of the place and how Megan reacts. We find out on one page that food is purchased at bulk rates to save money, that members live comfortably at the legal poverty level, that the community's rug and cheese making businesses collectively belong to the community's members, and that there are only two TVs for sixty people. Elsewhere there is mention of composting toilets, photovoltaic panels, and organic gardens. The description reflects the values of shared ownership, material simplicity and ecological awareness that characterize the communal groups belonging to the Federation of Egalitarian Communities, www.thefec.org. Other core principles include equality, non-violence and participatory group decision-making.

I've lived in communities like Wild Wind for the better part of a decade. It is always a pleasure to see this life described in published writing. I wonder though if the dense atmospherics wouldn't be tiresome, especially for younger readers who don't understand or care what a bulk rate is. On the other hand for those who like to read utopian novels where alternative worlds are described at length, or for people who enjoy the charms of goat milking, berry picking, loin cloths, wrap-around skirts, drumming, canoeing, people with animal names and other features of communal life this sort of thing could be interesting and all the more magical. There are actual places like this.

Despite the desire to establish cooperative and harmonious alternatives to a coarse and competitive world, real life communards get mad and fight about all kinds of things. For instance, it can be a crime against nature to mow the grass. Anyone who has had a spouse or roommate knows that it can be a challenge to get agreement on how living space is shared. Think of the fights between Felix and Oscar in The Odd Couple and multiply that many times over. The ongoing fight at Wild Wind, also true to life, is over who should be allowed to join. Megan, a vulnerable newcomer is exposed to one side of this argument and subsequently finds herself at odds with her friend Athena who is being raised at Wild Wind and acts as a kind of docent.

If intentional communities are sometimes hotbeds of fractiousness, it is also true that they are laboratories for exploring kinder, gentler, and more honest ways of relating. What's called “fair fighting” in this book is one of the forms of cooperative problem solving where participants seek to tone down feeling threatened and defensive and work together to address each other's concerns so that everyone “wins.” Athena, raised with lots of different people, is more socially adept and proposes a round of fair fighting to address her differences with Megan. Megan initially distrusts this process but eventually realizes that Athena actually listens to her, something she feels does not happen enough in her own rather traditional family. For instance, her parents didn't even consult her about their plans to leave her with her grandmother. Fair fighting will come in handy for Megan. Her parents discover Megan's deception upon their return, their anger compounded when they find out that an older male visitor tried to corner Megan in Wild Wind's shower house. They ground her and forbid her to visit Wild Wind or to see the friends she made there.

Most intentional communities do not have locker room style shower rooms where people of both sexes shower in full view of each other. Wild Wind does but has a private shower room as well. Nonetheless, several communities allow at least some public nudity as a kind of freedom statement. Potential visitors are usually forewarned about nudity and how they should behave around it. It is appropriate and realistic that Megan's own reaction to seeing naked people was dealt with early on in her Wild Wind visit. Megan, like most of the real life visitors, manages her discomfort and takes it in stride but there is that occasional newcomer (usually a man) who gets in trouble for habitually gawking or even making an undue advance. These incidents, while not too common, are always infuriating, all the more so if the offender targets a minor. Communards who open their homes to strangers must be able to extend to them considerable trust. Megan's offender is caught before he does anything more and promptly ordered off the property.

Despite the shower house incident Megan has experienced much of the good side of Wild Wind, enriched by its unconventional but basically sensible lifestyle and by the care and wisdom of its admirable folk. She would not reject Wild Wind because someone abusively took advantage of its easy-going ways and deeply resents her parents' judgment that she should no longer have anything to do with Wild Wind or its people.

Instead of blowing up or nursing resentment, Megan facilitates a family meeting, where no one is allowed to interrupt any one else, or to shout or name-call or be sarcastic, or get up and leave in a huff, and “everyone gets to explain what they need.” And so a new and better way of being where people listen to each other and hear and respect children, one first experienced at a flawed but well meaning commune, now makes its way into a heretofore conventional family. What are the possibilities?

Megan seems too serious for what I know of today's thirteen year olds. Her staging of a puppet show for her family to discretely model what she wants from them is cute and ingenious. But it is unbecoming for a self-respecting teen. Megan does feel that her mother doesn't want to accept that she is growing up. She may be trying on the “sweet little girl” to reach her mother. These considerations do not make the book less interesting or useful as it offers so much.

       Howard Fenster cataloged popular fiction at a public library, and lived in communities and small living groups for over twenty years. He prefers the call residents of intentional communities “communards” because it recalls the revolutionary spirit of the Paris Commune and because it is one word.

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by Joan McElroy

I thoroughly enjoyed "Moons and Junes" by Claire Garden. Claire has a real knack for tackling complex issues in a lively way through engaging characters and good storytelling. Several humorous passages had me laughing out loud. The dialogue and reactions of her teen characters struck me as being right on target.

Young adult readers will definitely resonate with the central conflict between Megan and her parents as well as with the situations that develop with her peers. Claire's theme of looking at life from both sides is developed well throughout the book, from the title to the conclusion. Her clear examples of the win-win problem solving process provide models that can be used by families, classrooms, and communities to facilitate better communication and greater respect. These skills are much needed in the world today.--Joan McElroy Columbia, Missouri

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by Susan Kohlhagen

Reading Moons and Junes offers an opportunity to open your mind to more socially- and spiritually-conscious living. It was intriguing to read about the day-to-day operations of a rural commune and to consider the benefits of this alternative lifestyle, while exploring the realities and conflicts inherent in group living. It was interesting to observe that some issues are common to all humans living in any type of close contact. It was inspiring how the children in the commune were generally treated with more respect and equality than seems typical in traditional families and that they were encouraged and expected to contribute at the level of their capability to the operations of the community. I can imagine how empowering and positive this might be in the development of a child s self esteem. The conflict resolution taught in the book is a lesson for all age groups, and I appreciated how it was used in more than one situation. I also loved the attentiveness to a healthy, natural, and environmentally conscious lifestyle.

I would be thrilled to see teens from a variety of backgrounds read Moons & Junes to observe how the main character, Megan, who is thirteen, transforms from a girl with a fairly skeptical and prejudiced viewpoint to one who is now more accepting, compassionate, responsible, and respectful in her approach to relationships and interactions. Athena, who was raised in the commune, is a good role model of an adolescent who is mature, capable, and confident, socially responsible, and fun-loving. Many typical adolescent issues are addressed in the book.

Moons and Junes was an enjoyable read with several unexpected plot twists. I finished the book wanting to know what will happen next for Megan, her family, and her friends at Wild Wind community. I give Moons and Junes a thumbs-up, positive endorsement for both parents and teens.

        -Respectively reviewed and submitted by Susan Kohlhagen, mother of two female adolescents, a Girl Scout leader for two teenaged troops, and a registered nurse who studies energy healing and works in a Teen Clinic in St. Louis, MO.

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