Watt Key's Alabama Moon

Alabama Moon is the tale of ten-year-old Moon Blake, a naive boy who has just lost his father and knows not how to assimilate into society due to his growing up in a hideout in the Alabama forest. I touched on a lot of themes on my website I created for this text and others, and the link is mentioned in my previous post. The one I'd like to talk a bit about here, that I did not give much credence to earlier is that of friendship. Moon helped orchestrate an escape from the boy's center he was staying in with the help of two new friends Hal and Kit. They form an unlikely bond and escape into a dense national forest with virtually nothing. Hal and Kit don't know the first thing about surviving the wild, but with the help of knowledgable Moon they hope to survive.

Unfortunately, Kit has an undisclosed illness (perhaps cancer) and doesn't realize that he requires medicine to stay alive. He alludes to this earlier in the novel, but he acts as if he doesn't need the medicine much longer. Moon's father, at the beginning of the novel, died from an infection in his leg that spread. The infection could have been prevented by synthetic medicines, but Moon's father relied on their natural surroundings as medicine. Unfortunately, Moon's father didn't make it. It seems very irresponsible of a father to not think pragmatically and realize what effect his death would have on a ten-year-boy with nothing. Moon reflects on his father's death with much dismay. He mourns, but eventually realizes he must go. He seeks to go to Alaska because there are more people like him. But the walk from Alabama to Alaska is no easy task for a young boy, despite his upbringing in the wilderness.

Hal decides that he must leave and that is was unwise to escape into the forest. He follows a trail along a river with the advisement of Moon and eventually finds a way to his father's home. When Kit's sickness becomes unbearable, Moon searches throughout the forest for traditional medicines his father used. He applies them all and gives them to Kit, but none of them work. Moon must make a choice: does he disobey's his father's ideals and take Kit back to civilization or does he hope that Kit gets better? Moon chooses the former and saves Kit for the time being.

At the end of the novel Moon is saved by Mr. Wellington, lawyer and landowner of the hideout that Moon grew up in. Moon's last wish before being eschewed down to southern Alabama to stay with his newfound family is to see Kit and Hal. The strong bond the boys developed in the novel is a great theme for young readers out there. It demonstrates the capacity for young boys to feel and bond. Some boys may find it difficult to deal with tough situations, but with the help of friends, they can be carried through. The boys survive the escape because they cared so much for one another that they would not let anyone get in the way. There are moral lessons to be learned throughout the text but the greatest one is that of having good friends around. They really are the glue that holds young boys together.