MOON AND ME

This is mostly about 14-year-old E.J.'s (for Elizabeth Jane) relationship with Harmon, or Moon, an owlish, statistic-spouting twelve-year-old who takes an unwelcome interest in her when the well-traveled E.J. (her last home was in Paris) arrives for a six-month stay at her grandparents' Iowa farm. Soon Moon is training a semi-reluctant E.J. and her grandparents' mare Lady Gray for a 100-mile endurance ride, which becomes something of an endurance event for readers who don't share her interest in horses. As soon as that's over Moon himself enters a similar bicycle trek, but the two continue to meet. All this time E.J. dreams of romance with local senior Rick Adams; but when Moon arranges a date between the two, all Rick wants to talk about is hogs. E.J. doesn't mind, but she's not thrilled either. And when it's time to leave the farm she realizes that she has come to value Moon as a friend and might come to reciprocate his more romantic interest. But Irwin doesn't make Moon's personality--or any others--sharp and special enough to stand out from the pack of similar characters in similar situations.