Every child sees their life as ordinary and has ways of dreaming.  Eleven year old Jaynell goes next door to the junkyard and pretends to drive away in an old car.  Jaynell is a tomboy (Daddy calls her "boy"). Unlike her ultra feminine sister, she loves to hunt, practice driving, and watch the preparations for the first trip to the moon. She wants her life to become exciting and to rescue her recently widowed grandfather.  But the summer unfolds in unusual ways.  Jaynell’s grandfather comes to live with her family and Jaynell is charged with keeping up with what he is doing all day.  He surprises everyone by buying a used Cadillac and by giving the old home place away to a needy family.  He even teaches Jaynell how to drive.  After he dies Jaynell learns a lot about family, friends, and love.  School Library Journal says, “This nostalgic parable about loss and redemption is at once gritty and poetic, stark and sentimental, howlingly funny and depressingly sad, but it is a solid page-turner.”

Ms. Holt writes this book in first person narrative from Jaynell’s point of view.  She makes it tender and makes the story real.  The research and accuracy of the setting is great.  Being a native Texan I feel like I have driven through Moon, Texas.  Kirkus says, “"Set against a backdrop of a small town in Texas in 1968, Kimberly Willis Holt's fourth novel brims with the wisdom and humor that have become her trademarks."

This is a book that inspires, entertains, and enlightens.  I could see myself as a child growing into a young lady in this book.  It encourages one to reach for the moon.

McLoughlin, William. Review of Dancing in Cadillac Light in School Library Journal. Available from: