Santa Fe Railway, Path to Perdition, and Shady's Place Summary

Moon Over Manifest is a novel by Clare Vanderpool based loosely on the writer's personal family history and the town of Frontenac, Kansas.

Santa Fe Railway. May 27, 1936. Abilene Tucker is on a train headed to Manifest, Kansas, a town where her father lived when he was a child. Abilene checks her few belongings, her two precious dimes, a letter for the people of Manifest from her father, and a box lined with an old Manifest Herald that holds her father's compass. The Herald contains Hattie Mae Harper's first column, one Abilene has read often. The compass is broken and has an engraving that Abilene believes is the manufacturer's name and date. Abilene places it around her neck as the train approaches Manifest. Having grown up jumping from...