Judgment, Perspective, and Storytelling
The title of Walk Two Moons comes from a mysterious note left on Sal’s friend Phoebe’s porch that reads, “Don’t judge a man unless you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.” In other words, one should only judge another person if one knows that person’s full story or has had the same experiences. This saying underpins 13-year-old Sal’s coming of age as she and her grandparents take a cross-country trip along the same…
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Parents, Children, and Growing Up
As Sal travels across the United States with her grandparents, Gram and Gramps, and tells them the story of her friend Phoebe, much of her tale is focused on parent-child relationships. When Phoebe’s mother, Mrs. Winterbottom, suddenly disappears, Phoebe is so unwilling to believe that her mother actually wanted to leave that she makes up fantastical stories about her mother being kidnapped and murdered. And as Sal watches Phoebe process her mother’s…
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Grief
Walk Two Moons is largely the story of how 13-year-old Sal deals with grief—first after Momma leaves Sal and Dad without warning, and then when Momma dies in a bus accident on her trip to Lewiston, Idaho. Sal’s healing process from this trauma takes almost two years: she transforms from being unable to identify her own emotions, to being unwilling to accept that Momma is actually dead, to finally being able to accept that Momma…
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Nature
Sal is, according to her Gramps, “a country girl at heart.” So, over the course of Sal’s cross-country road trip with her grandparents, as she tells them a story about her friend Phoebe, Sal is always attuned to the natural world around her. She describes the farm where she grew up; the tiny yards in Euclid, Ohio, where she and Dad live for a year after Momma leaves; and the landmarks, such as…
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