An excellent addition to books like "Go Ask Alice" and "Smack," "Beneath a Meth Moon" is Jacqueline Woodson's ode to young people fighting addiction. The main character, Laurel, is a scant 15 years old but has suffered tremendous loss in her young life. Seemingly naive, or perhaps undereducated, her descent into Meth addiction is swift and devastating. Told in a lyric style that borders on the poetic, Laurel attempts to write an elegy to honor and then let go of her past. The story flows like water, with water and waves being major themes in this tale. Snapshots emerge with each of the short chapters, told in a nonlinear style, and fill in a picture of a normal life that is upended by Mother Nature. Although it is never confirmed that this is a tale of Hurricane Katrina it could be. The novel shows ripples created by such a storm (there's that water metaphor again) and how they can echo across people's lives for years to come. There are also numerous echoes of faith. While not heavy-handed, Laurel comes from one of those rural sections of our nation where life is slower and God is found in all things. Laurel's grandmother echoes this in her musings. Laurel's sing-song speaking style, written with exquisite specificity by Ms. Woodson, adds to the rhythm of the telling. Even spoken words are italicized here, rather than put in quotes, perhaps to make sure this is smooth reading or to add an ethereal quality to the whole thing. In any case, it is yet another brilliant book by the hugely talented Jacqueline Woodson and reaffirms her status as a lifetime achievement writer, an honor bestowed on her by the American Library Association. Ms. Woodson may be one of the youngest recipients of this prize but her extensive body of work shows that it is talent, not years, that makes a writer truly worthy.
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