The Moon by Night
dust jacket to the hardcover edition
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| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
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| Cover artist | H. Lawrence Hoffman |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Austin family |
| Subject | Camping, relationships |
| Genre | Young Adult |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
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Publication date
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1963 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 218 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 16691018 |
| LC Class | PZ7.L5385 Mo. |
| Preceded by | Meet the Austins |
| Followed by | The Young Unicorns |
The Moon by Night (ISBN ) is the title of a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Published in 1963, it is the second novel about Vicky Austin and her family, taking place between the events of Meet the Austins (1960) and The Young Unicorns (1968), and more or less concurrently with the O'Keefe family novel The Arm of the Starfish. The book marks the first appearance of the character Zachary Gray, who dates first Vicky and then (in later books) Polly O'Keefe. Although Vicky will later appear in three novels that have fantasy and/or science fiction themes, there are no such elements in The Moon By Night.
In The Moon by Night (ISBN ), Vicky and her family are on a cross-country camping trip, meant to be a transition between their life in rural Thornhill, Connecticut and a very different one in New York City, where Vicky's father, Dr. Wallace Austin, will be doing research. In another big change in Vicky's life, Maggy Hamilton, an orphan who has been living with the Austins since her father's death, goes to live with her legal guardian Elena, who is marrying Vicky's uncle, Douglas Austin. Uncle Douglas and his new family move to Laguna Beach, California, where Vicky's family is to visit them during their travels. The first chapter begins with the wedding of Elena and Douglas.
The family's adventures show its differences from contemporary society. Along the way, they meet a teenage gang in Tennessee, help rescue children from a flood in Texas, and find an abandoned baby at a campsite in Utah. Vicky's younger sister Suzy grows emotionally during the trip, from wanting to adopt a fawn near the beginning to her later swift and competent rendering of first aid when another child is injured, despite wrong-headed demands by nearby adults. They see bears several times, and though they always act properly, their peers sometimes do not, with dangerous results. They also encounter anti-U.S. sentiment in a campground in Canada and intimations of the Cold War throughout their journey.
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Wikipedia