2.7 Stars
One Liner: Interesting but not charming

Twelve-year-old Maisie is delighted when her mom finally gives her a phone. However, her happiness is short-lived when her mom tells her the entire family will be moving to Maryland that summer to take care of great-aunt Hazel. Maisie gets a phone because she has to babysit her siblings, Rufus (8) and Dora (7).
Maisie neither wants the phone nor the babysitting responsibility, but when she gets a riddle as a message from a mysterious sender and Hazel gives a guidebook which is not entirely blank, Maisie has to find out who Moonleapers are and how she can help them in their mission.
The story comes in Maisie’s third-person POV.

My Thoughts:
This is the first book in the duology. While it has a proper ending, there is also a lead (cliffhanger) for the next book.
Maisie is a typical not-like-others tween who just wants to have a ‘normal’ life and a phone so that she can try to make some friends at school. Her parents are always busy, so she has to help deal with her siblings as well.
The premise of a phone leading to a superpower is interesting. The concept of Moonleapers and the rhyme is also cool. However, the story went from keeping too many secrets (aka, not providing enough information) to accelerating the third quarter in a blink. We went from barely any detail to information overload.
While I appreciate the use of a WWII backdrop (after all, nothing has changed; Nazis just have a different name today), the last section is a bit too overwhelming. I don’t know how many kids would enjoy the intention behind the concept. There needs to be enough breathing space for readers to process the developments.
That said, there are quite many elements the MG group will enjoy. We meet a cat and a dog. Both have good roles once they are introduced. All these should help kids relate to Maisie.
There’s a detailed author’s note explaining which parts are based on true events. Interesting, of course, but since I zoned out twice, I’m not sure if kids will like it as much unless the topic appeals to them.
I haven’t been around 7 & 8-year-olds in a while and never around foreigners, so I can’t say with authority, but Rufus and Dora don’t seem to act their age.
The parents are strange, too. How do you expect a twelve-year-old to remember someone she met as a one-year-old? And faux chocolate? While I understand the importance of bringing up kids with sensitivity and better social awareness, maybe don’t ruin their childhood in the process. (Though from what I’ve seen by googling fake chocolate, the use of artificial flavouring and vegetable fat is more dangerous than cocoa, right?)
The cover is terrific, though. Suits the plot very well!

To summarize, Moonleapers has a great premise, but the uneven execution dampens the enjoyment. Still, I’ll read the second book (if I can get an ARC) and see how it takes the story forward.
Thank you, NetGalley and Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins Children's Books), for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

The plot inspired me a lot: mysterious messages with riddles that start an adventure. I wasn't disappointed at all: I knew it was a book aimed at a young audience and in fact I think I would have definitely loved it as a kid. It's got everything: mystery, riddles, a secret society, time travel, animals.... All seasoned with a crackling, funny and energetic writing style.

I really liked Maisie as a character, and in her being the older sister of two brothers, I saw myself a bit at her age.
The helpers Cat the Great and Little Dog are really cute but also mysterious, they play the role of guide and help in a great as well as nice way.

I had never read anything by this author before, and I must say I am sorry because in my opinion she is very good at writing middle grade books. Moonleapers is not out yet and I already wish I could read the sequel!

Great Aunt Who? Maisie and her family are headed to Maryland to look after Great Aunt Hazel- someone Maisie has never met. How can she connect with someone she has never even heard of- especially if she can’t even connect with the other people around her? She is about to find out…

This book is all about connections between people- strong, short, missed,tenuous- all of the connections that make up life as a human.

Masie is a sixth grader who is excited to get her first phone. Unfortunately, it comes with the responsibility of taking care of her younger siblings for the summer while her mother cares for great-Aunt Hazel. Then she begins receiving mysterious texts from a secret group of “moonleapers”.
This book had me turning pages to find out what was going to happen next! The ending leaves you with just enough questions to make you want to read the next book in the duology.
I would recommend this to my 4th and 5th graders who enjoy books with time travel and mystery. There are even references to World War II for those who enjoy historical fiction.
Thank you to HarperCollin Children’s Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

what I really loved about this book is the vision that we get of being positively influenced by generations of people around us. in such a complicated time in history when many are distancing themselves from other generations, children’s literature is creating space to remember how important these connections can actually be.

this book is an excellent example of this. Maisie learns so much about herself over the course of her adventure, but she also learns how much value can be added to our lives when we learn from the people around us and let them stand beside us. the examples of connection in this book were so touching. i definitely cried.

Mrs. Haddix has done it again. I have loved her books from the Among the Hidden. She does a wonderful job for young adult/middle grade books that draw you in and keep you turning page after page.
This book was about Maisie and find who she ment to be with becoming a moonleaper and growing closer with her great-aunt-hazel and saving the day.

I have enjoyed reading Margaret Peterson Haddix book when I was in middle school, and I was wondering if her writing is a good as I remember. I am very happy to say that it is. This book follows the story of Maisie who is excited to get her first cellphone only to find out that she got one because she must watch her siblings this summer while her mom takes care of Great Aunt Hazel. Soon after Maisie gets texts from a mysterious number asking her riddles that might help her to change the world.

I feel often in children’s book I have come across a child character that feel like an adult and not a kid. This book does not have the problem all the decisions and actions of the kids feel authentic. This will make it more engaging with its young audience who can see themselves in Maisie. I think the working building is subtle but still interesting. The pacing is quick but does not feel rushed. I do like the little twist at the end of the book and the cliff hanger. I will defiantly be interested in reading the sequel.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy.

Great book combining magic and sci-fi together. Thank you to NetGalley & Harper Collins for this advance reader copy.

I really liked using a phone as a connection to magic and I think the concept was strong and mysterious. I do wish that there wasn’t quite so much set up in a middle grade book. I attempted to read this with my 4th grader and they lost interest, so it’s probably better suited for the lower end of YA.

As a long-time Margaret Peterson Haddix fan (the Shadow Children series will always hold a special place in my heart), I was thrilled to have the chance to read this middle-grade book, Moonleapers.

True to her other books, I was impressed by how much this book packed into a short, yet deep and sweet read. Moonleapers is a time travel story that blends rich life lessons about family dynamics, navigating the transition from childhood to teenage years, and reflecting on the balance of life.

The adventures throughout the book are so fun, whether it’s babysitting her younger siblings or leaping through time to help her Great Aunt Hazel.

Highly recommend for a quick, fun read for all ages!

When Maisie gets her first cell phone, she expects to mainly watch cat videos. She does not expect to get mysterious text messages from an unknown number that seems to know a lot about her Great-Aunt Hazel. Messages that seem to revolve around a children’s rhyme and a power called moonleaping. Her family has to move to Maryland for the summer so her mom can take care of Hazel, who is in a nursing home, which gives Maisie the opportunity to investigate what the Moonleapers are and how they connect to her Great-Aunt. She quickly realizes that there is an important mission she must complete with the help of a smarter-than-average cat and dog – before she runs out of time!

Moonleapers was a delight to read from start to finish. Maisie’s excitement over getting a phone and dread over babysitting are both really relatable, and it was fun to puzzle through the riddles and clues about Moonleaping alongside her. I think nerdy middle schoolers (like I was) will enjoy the challenge, too. Maisie’s relationships and interactions with her family members read as authentic, and the way they change over the course of the novel leads to a happy ending (though not without a few tears along the way).


[spoilers ahead]

I was genuinely surprised when it turned out that Moonleapers have time-travel abilities – I thought they would end up in space somehow. The way Moonleaping works is inventive and clever, preemptively addressing any concerns about a preteen physically moving around without her parents’ knowledge or involvement. It was also fully brilliant the way Maisie’s world turned into ours (or an approximation) when she helped Hazel unmask the Nazi spy; the line about her memories adjusting to the new timeline where WWII didn’t last into the 50s was genius. It made me see the whole novel up to that point in a new light, and really contributed to the juxtaposition of her new, happier reality with the old one.

While I liked the premise of MOONLEAPERS, time travel rule # 1 generally is that you cannot change anything about the past so having that be a major plot point didn't work for me. Otherwise I thought this novel brings up some interesting topics of missing out on actual life because you're so focused on your phone and how you don't always know who is on the other end of the line.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, HarperCollins Children's Books, and Quill Tree Books in exchange for an honest review.

Content Guide:
No foul language. No sexual content. References to war violence. No substance use.

Maisie receives a mysterious text from an organization called the Moonleapers. This launches her into a world of adventure, secrets, and dangerous missions. Will she be able to help her great aunt Hazel before it’s too late? Guess you’ll have to read it to find out! This was a great book! I’d recommend it to anyone ages 9 to 14.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.
-Laurel, 12 years old

Maisie is disappointed to spend the summer in Maryland while her mom sits beside her dying Great-Aunt Hazel, but she finds out that her aunt was a Moonleaper and that she is to be a time-traveler, too. Haddix has taken a different spin on time-traveling, but this one should appeal to history buffs as well as sci-fi fans. Can’t wait to add it to my classroom library— or to read Book 2.

I read Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Running Out of Time a few years after it was published in 1995. It was a Scholastic book fair option and had a compelling premise (so much so that I re-read it as an adult). Fast forward 27 years later or so and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw another of Peterson Haddix’s novels appear on the Camp NetGalley list of options. I didn’t know at the time of reading Running Out of Time that she was a fellow Ohioan and had attended my alma mater. Therefore, I immediately selected Moonleapers as my second camp read.

Within mere pages, I felt as though the characters and setting were reminiscent of another seminal middle-grade novel— A Wrinkle in Time. Maisie, the protagonist in Moonleapers, is a preteen girl unsure of her place in life and feels inadequate when compared to her mother and two younger siblings. While Meg Murry was a bit older in the first book in her series, their introductions were rather parallel. So too did the homes and off-putting environment in the gated community in Moonleapers feel like those that appeared on Camazotz. Yet, unlike the rich world that Madeleine L’Engle envisioned and unfurled in A Wrinkle in Time and the rest of the series, Moonleapers unfortunately reached too far and failed to develop the story in a meaningful way.

Maisie is supposed to be a protagonist to whom each reader can relate, for she seeks to discover her strengths in a world that deems her odd. However, Peterson Haddix’s turned her into quite an annoyance and quickly explained away major plot holes with weak excuses. For example, are we truly to believe that a child who openly admitted that she didn’t retain much from her lessons on Greek, Latin, Morse code, etc. suddenly realized that she knew enough to carry out her mission?

It is interesting that the reader (at least in my opinion) is made to believe the world in which Maisie lived originally parallels our own; only to learn later on that World War II lasted for far longer in that reality. Said discovery was relegated to a mere mention in the clunky action (or lack thereof) of the climax.

Running Out of Time had rather an action-driven plot. Thus, I was disappointed when the climax in this story was all description, with very little build up. The decoding of the letter via child/preteen-Hazel’s phone conversation with Maisie was the climax and the subsequent change in reality/timeline was just described to the reader. Seriously? That choice makes no sense and seems as though Peterson Haddix couldn’t figure out a way to transport Maisie to 1943, or more likely, ran out of pages in which she could develop that point and conclude the story. Not to mention the fact that Gilbert was not properly developed as a character, nor was his life as a POW given any time. Considering he was the key to the change itself (not Maisie), he should have been given his due. However, the most egregious error was the lack of characterization and storytelling regarding Mr. Burlan—the Nazi spy ring takedown was out of left field, as were the plans that were spoiled as a result. Ultimately, the climax should have been an action-driven moment (not a narration) that was a mere stepping stone to the climax (or rather, another plot point).

In my estimation, Moonleapers suffered from the same issues that befall many writers— a focus on world building and not enough on the plot/story itself. While I typically can assume the mindset of a child/pre-teen, and teenager when I read children’s, middle-grade, and YA literature (so I can accurately review it with the target audience in mind), the faults that riddled Moonleapers made it difficult to do so. Let’s hope Peterson Haddix’s next entry redeems this one.

Thank you to HarperCollins Children’s Books/Quill Tree Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

Margaret Peterson Haddix is a new-to-me author and honestly, this is not the usual genre or age group of books that I typically read. But when it was offered to me, something intrigued me about this story. Of course I love stories about time travel so there is that aspect that drew me in. And the cover is beautiful and alluring.

I was immediately captivated by Maisie and all that she had going on. This is a very well written story with plenty of mystery and intrigue to keep readers interested. This is the perfect duology for young readers with blossoming imaginations. It will open a whole world for them to enjoy.

Like I said before, Margaret is a new author for me and when I look at the list of books that she has already written, I feel like I missed out by not discovering her when I was a middle grade reader. It's never too late to enjoy good stories, though, is it? I'll have to check out some of her other books and I will definitely be watching for more of Maisie's stories.

🌙 Camp NetGalley Review 🌙

🌙 As a lifelong reader, of course I’ve encountered the genius of middle grade literature that is Margaret Peterson Haddix. Moonleapers is a time-travel mystery with flair, heart, and character depth. The story follows Maisie, a 12-year-old who feels increasingly left out as she’s the only one of her friends without a phone. When her mom finally lets her have a hand-me-down, it brings more than connection to her peers. Maisie begins receiving eerie messages that pull her into the orbit of the Moonleapers, a secret society of time travelers with a vital mission. Along the way, she bonds with a mysterious girl named Hazel, and their friendship brings emotional resonance that feels pitch-perfect for this age group.

🌙 Haddix’s writing shines, as always, in her uncanny ability to capture the tween experience. The balance of hope, wonder, and the struggle of growing responsibility hits that tipping point between childhood and adolescence beautifully. This is exactly the kind of story I would have devoured as a tween, staying up late, heart pounding, cheering Maisie on. My only complaint is I wish it were longer! But the tight pacing works well for the target audience, and I’m already eagerly awaiting the next installment to learn more about the world of the Moonleapers.

🌙 Perfect for readers ages 9–13 who love puzzles, mysteries, suspenseful twists, and courageous heroines.

🌙 Major Tropes & Themes:

- time travel, historical fiction
- WWII
- mystery, suspense, secret society
- quiet heroism
- middle grade coming-of-age
- self-discovery

🌙 You’ll love Moonleapers if you liked:

- The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
- The Spy School series by Stuart Gibbs
- Any of Margaret Peterson Haddix’s other books

4 out of 5 stars!

🌙 Huge thanks to Margaret Peterson Haddix, HarperCollins Children’s Books (Quill Tree Books), and NetGalley for the chance to read Moonleapers, Book 1. I’ll be sharing my review to Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, and B&N upon release!

Moonleapers by Margaret Peterson Haddix is a middle-grade novel.

Maisie is a 12-year-old girl who just got her own phone! She was so excited, but then her mom dropped a bomb on her: they were going to spend the summer with her Great Aunt Hazel. Maisie doesn't even know her great aunt, and now she's tasked with babysitting her younger two siblings.

Once they arrived at Great Aunt Hazel's home, things started to get strange. Her phone is sending her texts in riddles, a cat who is showing her clues, and a dog who follows her everywhere. The riddles turn into something big! She learns about Moonleaping and how she can save people in another time. This is a story of family, spies, and a love worth Moonleaping for.

Margaret Peterson Haddix writes middle-grade novels with a touch of fantasy, mystery and thrilling stories that has the reader hooked from the first page. I look forward to this series.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC and the opinions here are my own.

Fun take on the usual time travel trope. Maisie's mom bribes her to babysit with an old cell phone-her first phone! Maisie isn't prepared for mysterious texts and what it reveals about the Moonleapers. Super fun and perfect for middle grade readers. Characters were well developed and interesting. I did think it was a bit too much info dump until it got started but the author tightened it all up and it made sense. The ending leaves a few loose ends that I hope means this will be a series. I was given a copy to read and share my thoughts. Obviously, I am NOT the target demographic for this book but Peterson has been a favorite of my kids since forever and she doesn't disappoint with this one.

This was cute but a bit uneven, which I found frustrating. I really loved the concept and the setup. I enjoyed the slow build to see who was texting and what it all meant. And then suddenly - WHAM! BAM! - resolution after resolution was provided, things tidied up into a neat package, and all the delicious details and tension were overthrown for a rapid-fire set of answers that were provided without any of the dramatic flair that provided the flavor to the first 2/3 of the book. It was fine overall, and I'd be curious to see where the next book went, but the abrupt change of pacing and detail really threw me and detracted from my enjoyment. Granted, I'm not the target audience here, as I'm far from middle-grade life myself, but still - a more consistent storytelling style, akin to other work of Peterson Haddix's that I've read, would have benefited this one greatly...