Over the Moon

Natalie Lloyd's Over the Moon is a mountain adventure for 8 year olds about a girl who'll do anything to keep her little brother out of the mines.

What happens

Mallie Ramble is twelve. She lives in Coal Top, a mining town where Dust has blotted out the stars for as long as she can remember. Boys go down the mines. Girls go down the mountain to clean for rich families in the valley.

Mallie cleans for the Tumbrels. They don't pay her properly, and their son Honor makes fun of her arm. (She was born with her right arm ending just below the elbow, and she's not one bit ashamed of it.)

Her papa lost his sight and his voice in the mines, so Mallie's wages are all the family has. Then the Guardians, the men who run the mountain, come banging on the door at night. Pay a fortune within a week, they say, or seven-year-old Denver goes down the mine.

So when Mallie finds a mysterious blue flyer promising riches untold, she borrows Honor's clothes, tucks her braid up under his hat and goes to find out more.

Mallie is a brilliant narrator. She's fierce and funny and calls herself a fire-popper in a glass jar. Her world is full of lovely odd details, like little yellow birds that keep the miners company and old stories of winged horses that carried people up to gather starlight.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The Guardians shove Mallie's mum to the floor and punch her dad while the children hide under a bed upstairs. Children as young as seven have been sent into the mines. And the contest Mallie heads for would rather have orphans, because it's so dangerous.

It's gripping rather than grim, and hope runs all the way through it. But for a younger or more sensitive child it might be one to share. If your reader loves a brave girl standing up to unfair grown-ups, they'll be cheering Mallie on.

What to read next

For more of Natalie Lloyd's magic mixed into small-town life, try The Key to Extraordinary. Emma lives above her family's bakery on the edge of an old graveyard, waiting for a dream that could change everything.