New YA Book on a Different Path

Check out the places you can find PUT ONE ON THE MOON

books2read.com/u/m2Bnyj

In Put One on the Moon, Joe and Henry explore the hidden corners of a small town named Bend.

Joe begins the process of putting together courage to question the meaning of family. His mother and little brother, Ben, seem both able to fit in to small town life. His father, who they left in Boston, is about to have a second family, and Joe envisions this new family as replacing the old, one by one. He feels not at home, neither here nor there.

In this work of growing up, he meets Memphis, the veteran who lives in a trailer that can’t go anywhere. And Morley Hudson, volunteer at the town museum, keeper of historical stories. And Tabitha, who has created a home in an abandoned church, surrounded by garden and sacred words. Tabitha, aging daughter of a minister, says, “I’m not at all sure that my kind of faith is something to ring bells about.” Indeed, the bell tower of her home is boarded up and locked.

What starts out as an innocent tagging quest in an innocuous place—a movie-set town—takes an ugly turn as Henry questions life itself. Joe has to act—with friendship and with new and raw faith.

Put One on the Moon is a story of “going deep,” of making time to pause, to challenge our fears, and to allow for change—maybe even exploration of our very soul. Someday a Kilroy was Here will be on the moon. Meanwhile, here on earth, our own backyard is more likely to be in need of what the old World War II symbol “Kilroy” represents: seeking out, acknowledging, and tagging the unknown.

A New Book – for young adults, with an edge of faith

For years this story was titled “Kilroy was Here.” I wrote it, re-worked it, sent it out. It never found a home.

The main characters are both rather lonely young boy-men. Both feel caught in a town. One feels it’s boring, another feels it’s just not not home. One determines that the two of them should find find the unmapped, unexplored in the town and mark it with a WWII-era “Kilroy.” The other scoffs, and says that there are no “unmapped and unexplored” spaces.

Nonetheless, off they go. Loneliness has a way of pushing us together. They do find both spaces and people. They also find connections and meaning. There’s a thread of faith in something Greater woven through.

As I worked in this final thread, years after writing the whole, I was amazed how it fit; it was the missing piece I’d been waiting for.

In my own past, I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home. As a young person, I felt that my imagination and creativity was quashed by the beliefs of both my parents and my church.

But I don’t think it’s supposed to be like that–even though, for many, it still is.

So I’ve decided to self-publish this story, now titled “Put One on the Moon,” with its openness and compassion. I like to think it’s what faith is supposed to be about.

Here’s the link to find all the places you might purchase it as an e-book: books2read.com/u/m2Bnyj