What the Moon Saw

Laura Resau’s What the Moon Saw (2008) is a young adult novel for grades six through eight. The main character, fourteen-year-old Clara Luna, moves from Maryland to her family's native village in rural southern Mexico for the summer, where she discovers a new way of living and of understanding herself. The chapters alternate between Clara's and her grandmother's stories, allowing the reader a glimpse of Mixtec culture and Clara's self-discovery as she learns more about her ancestral home.

What the Moon Saw won a variety of awards and recognitions, including the Best Book for Young Adults 2008, New York Book for the Teen Age 2007, Booklist Top 10 First Novels for Youth of 2006, and many others. The book was chosen by the Vamos a Leer organization of New Mexico as an important book to teach Latin American literature and culture to youth.

In the first chapter, Clara tells us that despite the origin of her name, which means “clear moon,” she has not been feeling particularly clear-headed, and is confused about her place in her suburban home of Walnut Hill. As the book begins, her parents catch her sneaking out of the house. Clara relishes the freedom of her escape but fears her parents' punishment. However, instead of reprimanding her, Clara's father comes home the next day with a letter from her grandparents, written in Spanish, inviting her to stay with them in Mexico for the summer. They agree to meet her at the airport in Oaxaca on the full moon.



Clara has never met her paternal grandparents before this trip. The only part of her father's history she knows is that he illegally crossed the Mexican border as a teenager; she has heard very little about his upbringing or native land. Clara travels to her father's village, Yucuyoo, where she discovers that her grandparents live dramatically different lives than the one she knew in Maryland. In Yocuyoo, the villagers live in small shacks in the mountains and don't have DVD or CD players. She discovers that people in this part of Mexico speak not only Spanish but another indigenous language, Mixteco. Clara is shocked by the differences between her lifestyle and the lifestyle of her grandparents.

Upon her arrival, Clara begins to learn her family history – her grandmother tells her the names of plants and animals and stories of her mystical spirit journeys. Through these tales, Clara discovers that she shares the gift for healing that her ancestors passed onto her grandmother, and begins to feel proud and connected to her culture for the first time in her life. Though in Maryland she felt disconnected and alone, in Yucuyoo, Clara feels the pull of the natural world and the quiet simplicity of a rural lifestyle in the mountains.

During her stay in Yucuyoo, Clara also meets a young goatherd, Pedro, the first boy with whom she falls in love. In the village, Clara hears the story of the spirit waterfall, a body of water that is seen but never heard. She and Pedro embark on an adventure to find the waterfall, in the process, developing a romance that breaks down barriers between their cultures. While she explores the wilderness, Clara discovers a peace that she never knew in her life in the suburbs.



The central conflicts in the novel often stem from ideas about migration and cultural differences between life in Yucuyoo and life in the U.S. As Clara and Pedro get to know each other, Clara discovers Pedro's bitterness toward his father and all of the men from Yucuyoo who left the village to make new lives in America. Pedro is skeptical of the technological distractions that exist in the U.S., which embarrasses Clara because they took up so much of her time back in Maryland. In the middle of the book, Pedro's strong opinions cause a rift between him and Clara, when he tells Clara that he is singing love songs for “justice and dignity.” She believed he was singing the songs for her and is hurt when he doesn't admit his feelings. Clara accuses him of parroting back the words of men in the village and lecturing her about politics. They argue and insult each other's fathers, both of whom ran away from Yucuyoo to cross the border to America. Their argument leads to a period of silence between them, which isn't broken until a few chapters later when they run into each other at the market.

As the summer draws to a close, Pedro and Clara both begin to better understand the actions of their fathers and the value of their respective cultures. Clara discovers her place as a healer and lover of nature, and her understanding both of herself and her culture grows. Clara ultimately has to return to the suburbs, but she is changed forever by the experiences she had in Yucuyoo.

Laura Resau writes that her inspiration for this novel came from her travels in the region. She spent time staying with Mixtec and Mazatec families, and through them learned about their spirituality, perspectives on healing, and the strength with which women in the village had overcome poverty, racism, violence, and a lack of education. Her real-life experience in Oaxaca inspired the characters in the book, and as such, educators often use the novel to teach students about life and diversity in rural Mexico.