50 Fun Facts About Walk Two Moons

The proverb that gave Walk Two Moons its title warns against judging a man before walking in his what?

Moccasins complete the saying, which turns up as an anonymous note on Phoebe Winterbottom's porch. By the end, Sal and Gramps make a game of imagining life in other people's shoes.

The saying behind the title Walk Two Moons reached Sharon Creech on a slip of paper that came from what?

A fortune cookie supplied it: Creech rediscovered the little message at the bottom of her purse and began a new draft about a country girl setting out on a long journey.

In Walk Two Moons, Sal's mother was killed when which vehicle taking her to Lewiston, Idaho, crashed?

A bus skidded off the steep hill above Lewiston more than a year before Sal's trip, leaving a single passenger alive. Sal cannot fully accept it until she stands at the grave.

In Walk Two Moons, which fruit reminds Sal so strongly of her mother that she turns down a slice of pie?

Blackberries bring back the times she picked them with her mother on the farm. Sal tells Mrs. Winterbottom she is allergic rather than explain.

In Walk Two Moons, what bites Gram on the leg while the Hiddles cool off in the Missouri River?

A snake, a venomous cottonmouth, strikes while a boy with a knife is searching Gramps's clothes for a wallet. The same boy then helps rush Gram to a hospital.

In Walk Two Moons, what does Sal's grieving father uncover by chipping away a plaster wall in Bybanks?

A fireplace of brick lay behind the plaster, and he later carved Chanhassen's name into its cement. Sal says Phoebe's tale hid her own in just the same way.

In Walk Two Moons, the stranger Phoebe calls a lunatic turns out to be what relation to Mrs. Winterbottom?

Her son, Mike, was given up for adoption before she married, and she had never told her husband. She comes home with him, a stylish new haircut and the truth.

In Walk Two Moons, which Yellowstone sight is Gram so excited to see that she cannot fall asleep?

Old Faithful delights Gram, who cannot stop smiling as the geyser erupts. It is the last sight she enjoys before falling ill on the drive into Idaho.

In Walk Two Moons, Phoebe fears her neighbor Mrs. Cadaver partly because the surname is a word for what?

A dead body is what a cadaver is, and Phoebe decides the name suits a woman she suspects of murder. Sal half hopes it is true, since her father keeps visiting the house.

Which top American award for children's literature did Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons win?

The Newbery Medal went to Walk Two Moons in 1995, the first of Creech's books published in America. She was so surprised that she asked her publisher how many were given out each year.

In Walk Two Moons, Sal longs to go home to her family's farm at Bybanks, in which state?

Kentucky is home: Bybanks sits on the Ohio River, and Creech modeled it on Quincy, a real town where her relatives had a farm with a barn, a hayloft and a swimming hole.

In Walk Two Moons, who turns out to have been leaving the mysterious messages on the Winterbottoms' porch?

Mrs. Partridge, the blind old woman next door, meant them as cheerful surprises for the family. The Winterbottoms had suspected the stranger Phoebe calls a lunatic.

In Walk Two Moons, how is the English teacher Mr. Birkway related to Sal's neighbor Margaret Cadaver?

Her twin brother is the answer to a puzzle Phoebe reads as sinister when the teacher turns up at the house next door. He explains after reading her suspicions aloud in class.

In Walk Two Moons, how does thirteen-year-old Sal cover the last stretch from Coeur d'Alene to Lewiston?

She drives herself, four tense hours along winding mountain bends in Gramps's car, because he will not leave Gram's side. He had taught her on the farm back in Bybanks.

In Walk Two Moons, what living present does Ben Finney bring Sal because he knows she misses the farm?

A chicken is Ben's gift, already named after the fruit Sal ties to her mother. It arrives on the evening she finally learns how her father met Mrs. Cadaver.

In Walk Two Moons, Sal's mother, Chanhassen, goes by which nickname drawn from the meaning of her name?

Sugar is short for the sweet tree sap her name is said to mean, and it is carved on her gravestone. She longed for people to use Chanhassen instead.

Sal's parents in Walk Two Moons named her Salamanca after an ancestor's tribe, but which tribe was it really?

Seneca was the real name; her parents had misremembered it as Salamanca and only found out after she was named. Boys who want to annoy her turn it into Salamander.

In Walk Two Moons, where is Phoebe convinced that Mrs. Cadaver has buried her missing husband?

In the backyard, Phoebe insists, after watching her strong neighbor chop down trees. Seeing Mrs. Cadaver dig up a rhododendron with a visitor only feeds the theory.

In Walk Two Moons, what did Sal's mother keep sending her during the long journey west to Idaho?

Postcards kept coming, and the last, from Coeur d'Alene, reached Bybanks two days after the family learned she would never return. Sal has disliked them ever since.

In Walk Two Moons, what does Gram suffer just before she dies in a hospital in Coeur d'Alene?

A stroke leaves Gram unconscious as the car reaches Coeur d'Alene. Gramps refuses to let go of her hand, telling the doctor he has been at her side for fifty-one years.

In Walk Two Moons, what really killed Mr. Cadaver, the husband Phoebe imagines was murdered?

A drunk driver hit the car, killing him and blinding his mother-in-law, who was riding with him. Mr. Birkway tells Phoebe's family the truth to end her murder theory.

In Walk Two Moons, how did Sal's father first come to know Margaret Cadaver, the neighbor Sal resents?

She sat beside his wife on the long ride to Idaho and was the lone survivor of the crash, holding her hand at the end. He visited her in hospital and they talked for six hours.

At dinner in Walk Two Moons, the Winterbottoms serve no meat or butter because they worry about what?

Cholesterol is the family's fixation, and Phoebe later scolds the Finneys for frying their dinner and eats a bowl of muesli instead. Sal finds the Winterbottoms stiff and oddly silent.

In Walk Two Moons, what does Mr. Birkway read aloud in class, causing uproar despite changing the names?

Summer journals, set as holiday homework, turn out to be full of frank remarks about classmates. He stops and apologizes after one entry accuses someone close to him of murder.

In Walk Two Moons, asked to draw their souls, what do Sal and Ben both put inside a circle?

A maple leaf sits at the centre of both drawings, the only matching pair in the room. The class had just fifteen seconds, too little time to copy anyone.

In Walk Two Moons, which figure from Greek myth does Phoebe present to the class as a gift, not a curse?

Pandora is Phoebe's subject, and she uses the report to attack Ben's talk on Prometheus. Sal is struck that hope was left in the box, and pictures a second box holding one worry.

In Walk Two Moons, where do Sal and Phoebe finally spot Mrs. Winterbottom sitting with the so-called lunatic?

At a university in a nearby town, the girls see her on the lawn outside his dormitory and watch her kiss his cheek. Sal bolts, and Phoebe decides her mother no longer needs her.

In Walk Two Moons, Ben Finney is staying with Mary Lou's family because his mother is living where?

A psychiatric ward is her home for now. Sal finds Ben trailing his mother across the hospital lawn; she seems not to notice Sal, which reminds Sal of her own mother's low days.

In Walk Two Moons, Sal keeps urging Gramps to hurry so they reach Lewiston in time for what occasion?

Her mother's birthday, the 20th of August, is the deadline Sal sets, giving the car a week to cross the country. She believes arriving on the day could bring her mother home.

In Walk Two Moons, with whom did Gram once briefly run off before Gramps came to fetch her home?

The egg man kept Gram for three days and three nights, until Gramps came and promised to stop swearing. She tells Sal she cannot even remember why she went.

In Walk Two Moons, what name does Gramps give his new beagle puppy in memory of Gram?

Huzza Huzza was Gram's cheer for anything that delighted her. By then Gramps and Sal are back on the farm at Bybanks, where Gram is buried.

In Walk Two Moons, what did Gramps's family sneak into the newlyweds' cabin as a wedding surprise?

A bed, the one Gramps and all his siblings were born in, was waiting when the couple got home. Every night of the trip he pats the motel mattress and admits it is not the same.

In Walk Two Moons, which of the Great Lakes is so vast that Gram at first mistakes it for an ocean?

Lake Michigan is an early stop: the three dip their toes in, then spend the night at a motel on the edge of Chicago. Gramps struggles to find his way out of the city next morning.

In Walk Two Moons, Sal wakes at Wisconsin Dells afraid she has been left behind; what is Gram doing?

Dancing in the middle of a circle of Native American performers, Gram is wearing an enormous headdress that has slipped down over her forehead. Sal knows her by the cheer she shouts.

In Walk Two Moons, which South Dakota landmark do Sal and her grandparents dislike and leave quickly?

Mount Rushmore leaves Sal wondering how the Sioux feel about presidents' faces carved into their sacred hills. Gram does not even want to get out of the car, so they do not stay long.

In Walk Two Moons, what makes the 'singing tree' on Sal's farm at Bybanks seem to sing?

A hidden bird sings from so high up that Sal never once sees it. The tree fell silent the day she learned her mother was not coming back, and she hears another by the grave in Lewiston.

In Walk Two Moons, what does Mrs. Cadaver's blind mother correctly guess by feeling Phoebe's face?

Her age is the old woman's trick, done with her fingertips. It unsettles Phoebe, whose father was once misjudged by fourteen years by a guesser at the state fair.

In Walk Two Moons, what small act of rebellion do an angry Phoebe and Sal share in the street?

Spitting in the street lets Phoebe vent after her mother comes home with a secret. Sal joins in, finds it oddly satisfying, and then feels brave enough to visit Mrs. Cadaver.

In Walk Two Moons, what job keeps Sal's red-haired neighbor Margaret Cadaver out on late shifts?

Nurse Margaret Cadaver was on duty in the emergency room the night her own husband and mother were brought in badly hurt. Sal and Phoebe search her house during one late shift.

In Walk Two Moons, whom did Sal's mother set out to visit in Lewiston, Idaho, when she left the farm?

A cousin, and a distant one, lived there; she hoped the visit would remind her who she was. She went alone and could not face saying goodbye to Sal, leaving a letter instead.

In Walk Two Moons, what does Phoebe's formal, proper father, Mr. Winterbottom, make for a living?

Road maps are his trade, a neat irony once he has no idea where Mrs. Winterbottom has gone. At home he plays the stern head of the table, and Sal thinks he looks older than thirty-eight.

In Walk Two Moons, on whose desk does Sal spot a family photograph showing Phoebe's so-called lunatic?

Sergeant Bickle is the officer who shrugged off Phoebe's kidnapping fears. Sal later phones his house, poses as a friend returning a book, and coaxes the young man's address out of him.

In Walk Two Moons, what does Mr. Winterbottom take as proof that Phoebe's mother was not kidnapped?

Meals in the freezer, cooked ahead so the family need not fend for itself, show she planned to go. Phoebe still hunts the house for clues and insists the police be called.

In Walk Two Moons, where does Ben Finney's first, badly aimed kiss land on a startled Sal?

Her collarbone gets it, at the Finneys' noisy house, and Ben flees the room without a word. Later attempts hit her ear and, when Sal tries, a school locker.

In Walk Two Moons, where do Mary Lou Finney's parents climb a ladder to be alone together?

The roof is the Finneys' hideaway, where they go to kiss away from their houseful of children. Watching them reminds Sal of how her own parents used to be.

In Walk Two Moons, what does Sal's father agree to do with the Bybanks farm instead of selling it?

Rent it out was the compromise he reached after Sal's furious tantrums, so the family could return one day. He said he had to get away because Chanhassen's memory haunted the place.

Walk Two Moons sets Phoebe's tale inside Sal's cross-country drive; what is this story-within-a-story structure called?

A frame narrative lets Creech run two timelines at once. Sal comes to see a third layer underneath them both: her grandparents' own long romance, told along the highway.

Euclid, Ohio, where Sal lands in Walk Two Moons, is a suburb of which city near Sharon Creech's birthplace?

Cleveland is the city: Creech was born and grew up in nearby South Euclid. Sal, used to open fields, finds the houses packed together like birdhouses.

Walk Two Moons began as a follow-up to which earlier Sharon Creech novel narrated by Mary Lou Finney?

Absolutely Normal Chaos came out in Britain in 1990 and reached American readers only after Walk Two Moons had succeeded. Phoebe, then Sal, took over Creech's later drafts of the sequel.

In which country was Sharon Creech living when a phone call told her Walk Two Moons had won its big prize?

England was home in February 1995, and Creech had stepped into her tiny garden to scream over an unfinished book when the phone rang. The committee cheered down the line.