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CHESHIRE MOON by Nancy Butts

CHESHIRE MOON

by Nancy Butts

Pub Date: Sept. 16th, 1996
ISBN: 1-886910-08-1

Beneath the crescent moon, a shared dream becomes life-threatening reality for two angry young people—one deaf, the other fatherless. Having isolated herself by refusing to vocalize or wear a hearing aid, Miranda takes her usual summer trip to Summerhaven, a Penobscot Bay island, fully aware that since the death of her friend Timothy—the only islander who could sign fluently—it won't be the tranquil escape it had been in past years. There she meets Boone, nursing grievances of his own since the abrupt departure of his father—and his mother's work schedule leaves him to cope (not too well) with unruly younger siblings. The two do not warm to each other until, spurred by a recurring dream of a shadowy figure on a nonexistent island, Miranda rows out into the bay, encounters Timothy's ghost, and rescues Boone, who had been dreaming the same dream. Butts convincingly shapes Miranda's resentment, fueled by the exaggerated but not entirely unjustified conviction that she's a victim of prejudice, describing with uncommon clarity her signs and how deafness affects her acts and perceptions. The supernatural twist seems superfluous, however, less a healing device than a contrivance for creating dramatic tension—this and the perfunctory way Boone's family troubles vanish without explanation strand a strong protagonist. (Fiction. 10-12)