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Shooting the Moon

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 1,784 ratings · 397 reviews

JAMIE THINKS HER FATHER CAN DO ANYTHING....UNTIL THE ONE TIME HE CAN DO NOTHING.
When twelve-year-old Jamie Dexter's brother joins the Army and is sent to Vietnam, Jamie is plum thrilled. She can't wait to get letters from the front lines describing the excitement of real-life combat: the sound of helicopters, the smell of gunpowder, the exhilaration of being right in the t...more

Hardcover, 176 pages

Published January 29th 2008 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers

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Feb 03, 2008 Betsy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've written about this before, but there's a flush of appreciation a reviewer experiences when they discover a great author that they've never read before. Even if that person has been around for years. In the case of Frances O'Roark Dowell, I'd read her first Phineas L. MacGuire book and I thought it was great. Still, I'd never gotten around to reading some of her better known works for older readers. I'd never picked up Dovey Coe or Chicken Boy or even The Secret Language of Girls. It just ne...more I've written about this before, but there's a flush of appreciation a reviewer experiences when they discover a great author that they've never read before. Even if that person has been around for years. In the case of Frances O'Roark Dowell, I'd read her first Phineas L. MacGuire book and I thought it was great. Still, I'd never gotten around to reading some of her better known works for older readers. I'd never picked up Dovey Coe or Chicken Boy or even The Secret Language of Girls. It just never came up. Still, I figure a person's got to start somewhere and so the book I decided to begin with her newest title, the historically minded Shooting the Moon. A lot of people love Ms. Dowell and maybe they've become unable to tell one great book of hers from another. To those people I say this: This book is amazing. Top notch, wonderful, humorous, meaningful, with a pull and a hit in the gut that'll knock a readers' socks off. What we've got here is a title that has an excellent chance of engaging every reader that comes across it. And timely doesn't even begin to describe it.

Jamie Dexter is a card shark, an army brat, and her father's daughter. She and her older brother TJ were raised to love the United States Army by their father, the Colonel, and as far as they're concerned the greatest thing in the entire world is getting a chance to fight and die for your country. Seems like the Colonel would be pleased as punch to have TJ enlist and go to Vietnam to fight instead of going to college, but oddly enough that doesn't seem to be the case. Still, off TJ goes and before he leaves Jamie asks him to write her letters about everything he sees and feels over there. Except that TJ doesn't do that. Instead he sends her rolls of black and white film he's taken over there with very precise instructions: "Jamie: No facilities here ... Please develop and send contact sheets." Of course, that means that Jamie has to learn how to develop film, and she does when she gets a chance. And through TJ's lens, Jamie sees more than just what it's like in Vietnam. She now hears the experiences of the soldiers that walk through the rec center where she works. She sees her father as a man and not a larger than life figure. And she begins to understand that sometimes things aren't as simple as you would like them to be.

Reading my description of the book I know that you might be a little worried. It sounds like a book inclined to get preachy, doesn't it? I'm as anti-war as the best of them, but there's nothing worse than a work of fiction for kids that gets all holier-than-thou, proselytizing its views on war and how it's naughty. But Frances O'Roark Dowell isn't going to play that game. For one thing, she really is an army brat. For another, she's a good writer. This isn't a book that tells you what to believe. It's a book that starts with someone who thinks that they know what to think only to find that the world is a complicated place. It was a complicated place in the late 60s and it's a complicated place today. Which is not to say that you can't take a moral or a lesson out of this book if you want to. It's only giving you an option.

There is a school of thought that says that if you place a story in history, you better have a darn good reason for doing so. So the question becomes, could Dowell have set this story in the here and now rather than the past? Would it have served the moral better? The answer is no, there is no other time period that would have better served this story. For one thing, you could have a character taking pictures with black and white film, but digital cameras are undoubtedly more probable today. And you could have sent TJ to Iraq instead of Vietnam, but part of the reason the end of this book works as well as it does is because we can look at the past and learn from it.

The thing is, this is a book that's easy to love. You love the people in it. I, for one, loved the character of Jamie. She felt true and real and interesting. She also carries her certainties with her on her sleeve. "I was six months away from turning thirteen and I thought I knew everything." Can't say it any plainer than that (not to mention that it carries a whiff of To Kill a Mockingbird). Really, every character in this book (and there aren't that many) appears with all three dimensions firmly intact. For example, Jamie describes Cindy Lorenzo, a girl who is somewhat learning disabled, as being "nervous and excitable and shaky around the edges. She hit and bit." Pitch perfect, that.

As for the writing itself, Dowell's book is only 176 pages and she packs each one with interesting text. Chapter Two, for example, begins, "We were stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, a flat piece of real estate that threatened to burst into flames every afternoon from June through September." Or the first sentences of Chapter Four, "TJ's first letter to me wasn't a letter at all. It was a roll of film." You can see that Dowell includes equal parts interest and good writing, and the effect is tight. This is a book that doesn't mince words. It gets right to the point every time and doesn't sacrifice anything in the process. Rare? You don't know the half of it. The writing and the editing on this puppy must have been intense.

It's hard to find fault here. I do know at least one person who thought it a little odd that the book didn't concentrate more on the moon landing and how that would have affected the characters. The book is called Shooting the Moon after all. But Dowell covers her bases, having TJ speculate at times about "the idea that there are human footprints on the moon's surface." Classrooms of children will someday be asked what the moon signifies to TJ and to Jamie. I can already see it. My questions and concerns about the book were a little more basic. I would have liked a little more background on the Colonel's past. Did he serve in WWII or Korea? Does he know what real combat is like? Does this inform what he feels about his own son enlisting? And maybe an explanation of where Jamie is getting all this photographic paper and chemicals for developing her brother's pictures would have been nice. I assume that the army provided all this free of charge in their rec center but we don't know it for a fact.

Otherwise it's as fine a book as you could hope for. With its magnificent backing and forthing within the story's timeline, its spot on characterization, its plot, writing, and general kid-friendly text (always important and seldom recognized) Frances O'Roark Dowell has more than just a winner here. She has a classic. 2008 required reading for any and for all. (less)

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Jan 06, 2010 GraceAnne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-teach

Every single word is spare, perfect, inevitable. It has a brilliant first sentence and a heartbreaking last -- the final scene is a jab to the heart.
A Newbery contender right now, no matter what other gems the year brings us.

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Nov 29, 2008 Eva Mitnick rated it 4 of 5 stars

If Jamie had the good luck to be an 18-year-old boy instead of a 12-year-old girl, she’d enlist in the army so fast, it’d make your head spin. But she isn’t, and so she volunteers at the rec center, keeping things tidy and playing endless games of gin rummy with her friend Private Hollister.

It’s her older brother TJ who chooses to enlist rather than go to college, and he is sent to Vietnam as a combat medic, much to TJ’s excitement and envy. Strangely, their father the Colonel, who is chief of...more If Jamie had the good luck to be an 18-year-old boy instead of a 12-year-old girl, she’d enlist in the army so fast, it’d make your head spin. But she isn’t, and so she volunteers at the rec center, keeping things tidy and playing endless games of gin rummy with her friend Private Hollister.

It’s her older brother TJ who chooses to enlist rather than go to college, and he is sent to Vietnam as a combat medic, much to TJ’s excitement and envy. Strangely, their father the Colonel, who is chief of staff at Fort Hood and apparently a gung-ho hooah Army man through and through, doesn’t seem nearly so thrilled about TJ’s decision.

When TJ, always an enthusiastic amateur photographer, begins sending rolls of film to Jamie from Vietnam, she learns to develop them so that she can send TJ the contact sheets. This brings her in contact with Sgt. Byrd, who has a way with words and a point of view about Vietnam that startles Jamie and makes her think. Even more startling are TJ’s photos, which start out as innocuous shots of barracks and smiling soldiers but soon become grimmer as they depict the horrors of war. It’s not long after TJ sends back an entire roll of photos of the moon that he disappears.

Jamie is a straightforward person – she knows who she is, what she wants, and what she likes. It’s when the folks around her confound her expectations of them that she begins to question things. Even so, it comes as a shock to her when she learns that her own father is equally capable of thinking for himself and coming to his own conclusions about the war.

With the exception of Jamie’s mom, who remains somewhat of a cardboard figure, every character is carefully drawn, from gawky Private Hollister to Jamie’s needy neighbor Cindy. TJ is enigmatic. Was it a desire to please his dad that led him to enlist, or maybe a childish desire to see new and exotic places? Why did he always love taking pictures of the moon, and why did he revert to his old hobby? I imagined him becoming so shell-shocked that he preferred to point his camera up at the sky at night rather than down at the misery and heartache all around him under the harsh light of day. We learn that he comes home safely after two years as a POW, and the moon photos allow us to guess that his sensitivity probably made these years a hell for him even as his creativity gave him the resilience to survive.

This is a heavy topic, but Jamie’s matter-of-fact voice and the plentiful touches of humor keep things from getting too grim or sentimental. In fact, the true hell of that war is kept at a distance from both Jamie and the reader, although we can guess at the anguish that her family will feel at knowing nothing about TJ’s fate or whereabouts for a long, long time when, after mentioning that her brother does come home from the prison camp eventually, Jamie says as the book’s last sentence, “But we didn’t know that yet.” What a powerful and subtle way of summing up what this family will go through – it gave me a jolt that I’m sure many perceptive young readers will feel as well.

Grades 5 - 8
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Jul 26, 2008 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book because of the title - shooting the moon is a term from the game Hearts and playing Hearts is a Good Father memory. That the book is about fathers and daughters sealed the deal for me.

I suppose its the southern-ness of the author - Frances O'Roark Dowell can almost not be anything but southern - that gives it a cadence similar to To Kill a Mockingbird. Colonel Dexter is perhaps something like Atticus - tall, professional and charming. His daughter, Jamie, clearly adores him...more

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Mar 12, 2008 Christina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: kid-books

Jaime is a 12 and a half year old Army brat when the Vietnam War is being fought. She refers to her dad in the 3rd person, as The Colonel. She loves being in an Army family, and is super excited and proud when her brother enlists- he is sent to Vietnam as a medic. She thinks she knows everything, but boy, does she have a lot to learn. Her brother, TJ is a great photographer and the Colonel wants him to go to college not into the army.
TJ sends Jaime rolls of film to develop, and she is forced to...more

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Mar 23, 2009 Ruhama rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: juvenile

Jamie is an Army brat--her father, grandfather and now her brother are all part of the United States Army. Her father, in fact, is a Colonel at Fort Hood and has trained his children to love their country and see the Army as part of displaying that loyalty. Everything seems to change, though, when TJ signs up to join the Medical Corp as soon as he graduates from high school. Suddenly, the Colonel wishes TJ would go to college first, especially since most recruits get sent immediately to Vietnam....more

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Jan 02, 2009 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: work, elementary

Raised as an Army brat, 12-year old Jamie longs to be a soldier fighting in the jungles of Vietnam... she has prepared for it all her life, promotes warfare at any chance, and thinks draftees are lucky. When her older brother enlists and her Army career father objects, she doesn't understand.

While in Vietnam, Jamie's brother writes home to his parents often, and sends Jamie undeveloped rolls of film. In a note he tells her to learn how to process the film and print the photos. Jamie learns dark...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Yang-ji rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shooting the Moon
by Frances O'Roark Dowell
Finished April, 2013
Historical Fiction
176 pages

In the midst of the Vietnam War, Jamie Dexter is an army brat. She was born and raised to be part of the army. Looking up to her father, the colonel, she dreams of being part of the excitement of war. However, when her brother gets deployed as a medic, her dreams of being a soldier slowly turns around. TJ, her brother, sends a roll of film to Jamie in his first letter, as she volunteers at a recreational cen...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Ethan Talampas rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ethan Talampas

Language Arts

Ms. Music

6th hour

Book Review

Is the army life fit for you? This amazing book, Shooting the Moon, was written by Frances O’Roark Dowell. This book is Dowell’s best seller. The book, Shooting the Moon, is about a little girl named Jamie Dexter. She is the age of 12. Jamie is the protagonist in this story. The major theme is to do anything to help someone out. Her brother has just entered the army. Very curious about her brother, she finally gets his first letter. The...more

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Mar 09, 2012 heidi rated it 2 of 5 stars

Slight. Not going on my list to buy.

I found this book intensely frustrating because I feel that the author was heading for "spare" and headed right over the cliff into "cryptic allusion". For example, when the title is Shooting the Moon, and the protaganist plays card games, one might expect a reference to that version of shooting the moon, as well as the obvious photography angle. I think this may bother me more as an adult because I see the missed connections. I know why a Vietnamese child mig...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Brian Kelley rated it 3 of 5 stars

A clean and uncluttered plot carries Frances O'Roark Dowell's Shooting the Moon. A great book for a middle school library classroom for any reader, it will play well with struggling readers in the 8th grade.

The story grows (briefly) heavy towards the back end, but the author pulls it out any possibility of a grim or disturbing conclusion. Twelve year-old Jamie roots for her brother as he enlists in the Army upon high school graduation and is immediately shipped to Vietnam. A pair of Army brats,...more

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Oct 04, 2011 Maddy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shooting the Moon
By: Frances O’ Roark Dowell

I can connect to many families around the world because they have family members that go to war. In the book I am reading Shooting the Moon, a girl named Jamie is put in the situation of her brother going into war….. She is proud for him but at the same time she is worried about him. That is how most families react when they are put in this type of situation. Just like many families that have family members in war Jamie in Shooting the Moon by Franc...more

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Sep 22, 2010 713Josh rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 7th-grade-books, 7th-grad-books-that-were-just-okay

Shooting the Moon, by Frances O'Roark Dowell is about a twelve year old girl, Jamie Dexter who grew up in an army family. Her brother enlisted in the Vietnam War instead of going to college. She fantasized about going into battle, but throughout the book, she learned the not so great reality of the army and of combat overall. Much of the book took place in the army recreation center where she volunteered. She made a long lasting friend there, named Private Hollister. She and her older friend pla...more Shooting the Moon, by Frances O'Roark Dowell is about a twelve year old girl, Jamie Dexter who grew up in an army family. Her brother enlisted in the Vietnam War instead of going to college. She fantasized about going into battle, but throughout the book, she learned the not so great reality of the army and of combat overall. Much of the book took place in the army recreation center where she volunteered. She made a long lasting friend there, named Private Hollister. She and her older friend played a championship of Gin Rummy throughout the summer. She also learned how to develop film in her long summer. In the end, her brother was missing in action and was a Prisoner of War for two whole years. Overall, the most interesting part of this book was Jamie’s relationship with her brother, her father and war.
Many of Jamie’s relationships changed that summer. Her relationship with her brother and with war would never be the same. To an onlooker, it seems as though Jamie and her brother became closer that summer. Jamie’s brother sent her film to develop, while he sent his parents boring letters. Some of the pictures were of people wounded, with missing limbs and other graphic sights; the real story. It seemed as though he was being honest to Jamie and dishonest to his parents so they would not get worried. Seeing these pictures, Jamie learned that war is not a victorious, invigorating, exciting march to the finish. War is bloody, brutal, a taker of youth. Also, Jamie’s relationship with her father changed dramatically in that summer. Jamie went with a lot of courage and demanded respect and to be treated like an adult by her father.
Overall, this book was a very easy read. The writing was not splendid, but it had a dramatic plot. I would not read other books by this author, but it did the trick. It was not boring at least. It was made more interesting with my connection to Jamie Dexter. My brother is thinking about going to war, and I am proud of him, but scared for him.

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Jun 18, 2010 Kirby rated it 3 of 5 stars

I admire an author who can get us right into a time and place without much set-up. And Frances Dowell does that with this book. Though it seems odd to think of a Vietnam era book as historical fiction,this title is another good addition to that particular list. As an Army brat herself, Frances Dowell brings a credibility to the narration and, even though the father, the Colonel, is a gung-ho soldier, the reader picks up on his pain when his own son, TJ, enlists, well before the main character, J...more

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Jun 07, 2010 Ms.Walton rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shooting the Moon by Frances O’Roark Dowell was a good, quick read. I had, fortunately, brought this book home with me when school was cancelled because of a wind chill warning threatening -45 degree temperatures. I was easily able to read the whole book in a day.

The main character in the book, Jamie, has grown up in the Army. Her dad is a colonel, they’ve always lived on Army bases, and now her big brother has enlisted too. Jamie and her brother always loved Army life and playing soldier games...more

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Apr 03, 2010 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: middle-school-books, historical

This is a historical, coming-of-age story that I liked, but didn't enjoy reading and cannot judge objectively, since I chose the wrong time to read it. Jamie Dexter is almost 13 the summer of 1969, when her 19-year-old brother TJ enlists in the Army as a combat medic and is sent to Vietnam, postponing his college and medical school plans. To keep busy for the summer, Jamie works mornings at the rec center on the base at Fort Hood, where her family lives. Her father is a colonel who, like Jamie,...more

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Mar 03, 2010 Robin rated it 4 of 5 stars

The place is Fort Hood, and the time is the Vietnam War. Our main character, Jamie Dexter, is a twelve year old who introduces us to her family and the summer her brother goes to Vietnam. The story is told by Jamie, starting the day after TJ leaves for Vietnam. Jamie & TJ’s father, the Colonel, is a career army man. Jamie expects him to be as excited as she is that TJ is going to a real war. But TJ was supposed to go to college to be a doctor. Through flashbacks Jamie takes us back to earlie...more The place is Fort Hood, and the time is the Vietnam War. Our main character, Jamie Dexter, is a twelve year old who introduces us to her family and the summer her brother goes to Vietnam. The story is told by Jamie, starting the day after TJ leaves for Vietnam. Jamie & TJ’s father, the Colonel, is a career army man. Jamie expects him to be as excited as she is that TJ is going to a real war. But TJ was supposed to go to college to be a doctor. Through flashbacks Jamie takes us back to earlier times with her brother and parents, building their characters. After his enlistment TJ’s hobby as a photographer turns to photos of the moon. He chooses Jamie to develop the film he takes which helps her connect to him after he leaves. Jamie, through her work in the base Rec center makes friends with Pvt. Hollister, who fears he will be sent to Vietnam and Sgt. Byrd, who recently returned, with his own memories and photographs. Jamie ends the summer with a different attitude about Vietnam, and a changing relationship with her father and brother.
The author is a self proclaimed army brat and she uses that experience to give authenticity to the story. I liked the character development of Jamie, a very believable 12 year old. Jamie introduces the other characters beautifully giving you the feeling you know them. The secondary character of Cindy is Jamie’s neighbor and someone she shares the moon pictures with, but the stereotyping of the disabled peer doesn’t add to the story and in my opinion takes away from it. The pacing is good and keeps you right in the book. The timeline was short and the age description meant TJ was 17 going to Vietnam as a medic just weeks after his high school graduation. Dowell does a nice job concluding the story. Students may not be able to relate to the Vietnam War but can relate to the character of Jamie and her relationship with her parents, and her brother. With today’s deployments to the Middle East many may be able to relate to the feeling of knowing someone going to war.
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Mar 01, 2010 Terri rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: middle schoolers

Shelves: highly-recommended

I remember the horror of the Vietnam War as seen in photographs and film clips in magazines and on the nightly news. I remember going off to college where I encountered war protestors and began to question, for the first time, America's involvement in Southeast Asia. I remember my father, a WWII veteran, shaking his head in dismay when I expressed my new opinion that the U.S. should pull out of Vietnam. I remember the sense of sadness and futility I felt when Saigon fell and news clips showed th...more

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Nov 24, 2009 Leslie Brevard rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: rebecca-caudill-nominee-for-2010

3rd-5th grades
Dowell did a very good job bringing a lot of emotion to this book, he used humor, sadness and thoughts of confusion. He wanted the readers to realize that war was not all it was all craked out to be that many young men were going to war for all the wrong reasons. Jamie looked up to her brother and her father so much that she even wanted to be apart of the war unitl her brother went to war and sent her the pictures of what war was really like. Dowell did a good job spacing each chap...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

I needed something a little lighter after the last couple of titles, and this fit the bill. Jamie is an Army brat, born in Germany and shuttled around from base to base, according to the career of her father, the Colonel. It's 1969, and Vietnam is raging overseas, and on tv screens across America. When TJ, Jamie's older brother, announces that he's enlisted to be a medic, Jamie is thrilled for him; all their lives they've played soldier, and now TJ gets to go be in a real war. Jamie can't unders...more

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May 30, 2009 Karin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: juvenile-fiction, historical-fiction, vietnam-war, war, photography, friendship, families, relationships, 2010-caudill-nominees, borrowed-from-the-library

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jamie is so excited when her brother, TJ, enlists to be in the army and is sent to Vietnam. Their father is an army bigwig and has always shown such love and enthusiasm for the military, so it’s a surprise to Jamie when the Colonel (dad) tries to convince TJ to go to college instead. TJ won’t change his mind, so the family watches him board his plane with mixed feelings. Jamie is eager to hear about everything that happens in Vietnam, but instead of letters, TJ sends her rolls of film, and asks...more
Jamie is so excited when her brother, TJ, enlists to be in the army and is sent to Vietnam. Their father is an army bigwig and has always shown such love and enthusiasm for the military, so it’s a surprise to Jamie when the Colonel (dad) tries to convince TJ to go to college instead. TJ won’t change his mind, so the family watches him board his plane with mixed feelings. Jamie is eager to hear about everything that happens in Vietnam, but instead of letters, TJ sends her rolls of film, and asks her to develop his pictures. Since she’s volunteering at the recreation center, she uses their dark room to develop the photos, and it’s the photos more than anything else that help her understand what war is really like and make her wish that her brother was safe at home. Jamie’s supervisor at the rec center is another young soldier, Private Hollister, and they spend the summer playing cards (gin rummy) and looking at the photos TJ sends. Toward the end of the summer Private Hollister hears that they are looking to send more soldiers over to Vietnam, and he’s concerned that he might be one of them – he asks Jamie to find out from her father whether or not he’s going to be sent. Jamie does more than that. She asks her father not to sign his orders. That’s when she finds out just how hard the Colonel worked to keep TJ from being sent overseas, and how much he’s already gone against army protocol.

I’m really impressed with Frances O’Roark Dowell’s books. She manages, within limited space, to tell full, rich, and engaging stories that people of all ages can appreciate - she doesn’t oversimplify just because she’s writing for children. Her characters are thoughtful, intelligent people and you can’t help but love and care for them. Jamie’s interest in photography blossoms within the pages of this book, and details about the dark room and the developing process are fascinating (and will hopefully encourage other young photography enthusiasts to try their hand at it). Frances O’Roark Dowell uses TJ’s pictures to tell a compelling story about the Vietnam War, without being overly graphic or scary. Overall, an excellent piece of historical fiction.(less)

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Apr 25, 2009 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Summary: Jamie, a 12-year-old Army daughter, cannot understand why her parents don't share her enthusiasm for her older brother's decision to enlist during the Vietnam War. Her romantic notions about the war slowly change as her brother begins sending her undeveloped rolls of film from the war. Jaime's ideas about her father, her brother's refusal to write, and the war itself evolve as she spends her summer hanging with some GI's. As she faces off with one young soldier in a summer-long Rummy ch...more

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Apr 14, 2009 Cati rated it 5 of 5 stars

“Shooting the Moon” by Frances O’Roark Dowell was, in my opinion, a well written and exceptional book. It is a story about a twelve year old girl named Jamie Dexter whose brother joins the army and is stationed in Vietnam in 1969. The story explains Jamie’s life while her brother is gone. She becomes good friends with Private Hollister, a nineteen year old boy who has not been stationed yet. They play cards and work at the Army Rec. Center during the summer, to pass the time. Her father is a Col...more

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Apr 13, 2009 Adaliz rated it 3 of 5 stars

By: Adaliz Benitez

The book Shooting the Moon by Frances O’ Roark Dowell is about a girl named Jamie who was born into a family of soldiers. She always wanted to go to fight in the Vietnam War, but She was too young. Her brother was supposed to go to college and become a doctor ,but he felt it was his duty to serve the United States. So he became one of the doctors enlisted to go to Vietnam. His parents did not like the idea of having their son in war even though their family served. He always ha...more

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Apr 08, 2009 Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, rebecca-caudill-2010

Ages 8+

Jamie is almost thirteen and she thinks she knows all there is to know, especially about the Army. She was born on an army base in Germany and spent her childhood engaging in mock battles along with her older brother TJ under the eye of her father, the Colonel. Jamie is quick to tell anyone that she would go to Vietnam and heroically fight in the war there if someone would just let her. But when TJ enlists after high school, she's surprised by the Colonel's lack of enthusiasm at her broth...more

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Aug 08, 2009 Jackie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Jamie Dexter, army brat, lives and breathes war and wishes she could go off to Vietnam. But, when her older brother, TJ, gets sent overseas, her idealized visions of fighting the enemy changes. Her brother sends her 'letters' in pictoral form. When a package arrives and out falls that little black canister with a gray lid, Jamie immerses herself in developing the film. At first they are pictures of happy things...pretty nurses, laughing GIs, and the phases of the moon. Then, they become more gr...more

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Nov 08, 2009 Katy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

Shooting the Moon takes place during the Vietnam War. The main character, Jamie Dexter, is an army brat whose father is a colonel and brother, TJ, is getting ready to enlist in the army. She believes in the war and would go herself if she was not too young. Jamie is puzzled when her parents do not want TJ to go to Vietnam. They do everything in their power to stop him from going, but it does not work. TJ sends his parents generic letters, but he sends Jamie rolls of film. He encourages her to l...more

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Apr 09, 2011 Stevecrandell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: grades-4-7, middle-school-girls, war-stories

This story is powerful, and well-targeted for middle school readers. It provides a clear view of the Vietnam War through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl. Jamie Dexter’s family is based at Fort Hood, Texas. She’s anxious for any sign of action, even if only through the letters and photos of her enlisted brother, TJ. She makes friends with a couple of army grunts who’ve returned from tours of duty, and soon realizes that the war isn’t all excitement and glory.

Jamie’s greatest hero is her father, a...more

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Oct 30, 2009 Penny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shooting the Moon provides a particular heart wrench for this former Vietnam War protester. 13 year old Jamie is an army brat. Her dad is a colonel and the highest ranking officer at the base. When her 18 year old brother JT enlists and is likely to be sent to Vietnam, Jamie is ecstatic. Her brother will be able to fulfill her dreams of heroism and actually go to war. She cannot understand why her parents (particularly her father) are upset and try to persuade him not to enlist.

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Jan 15, 2009 Kate Hastings rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Grades 4-6 historical fiction vietnam photography

Shelves: historicalfictionj

A gentlER Vietnam story the way Number the Stars is for the Holocaust.

When army-brat Jamie's brother enlists for Vietnam, she figures her father, a colonel, will be happy. She sure is-- she can't wait to hear about someone who actually gets to fight for the country on the front lines!!

Working on base in the rec center, she gets to know soldiers who have bad memories from their tours and/or have lost siblings who fought there. She learns that maybe war isn't all glory all the time.

Her brother sen...more

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About Frances O'Roark Dowell

Frances O'Roark Dowell is an author of middle-grade fiction. Her books have received numerous awards, including an Edgar (Dovey Coe), the William Allan White Award (Dovey Coe), the Christopher Award (Shooting the Moon), the Voya Book Award (Where I'd Like to Be), and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Excellence in Children's Fiction, Honor Book (Shooting the Moon). Dowell has an MFA in Creative...more

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“He was a big talker, someone who liked words for words' sake, the sound of them, the way you can pile them up in your mouth and make a poem if you speill them out the right way.
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