Crossing Stones by Helen Frost

Eighteen-year-old Muriel and her brother Ollie have lived their entire lives near good friends Emma and Frank. The creek that divides their property connects them through the “crossing stones” across the water. It is 1917 and the families struggle through the tragedies of war, a major flu epidemic and the women's suffrage movement. But the families’ concern and love for each other gives them strength. The teens approach events with their own viewpoints and purpose. A coming-of-age story told in a unique and compelling style that can be used in the classroom, but will also be enjoyed by middle and high school students.

Helen Frost has the remarkable ability to combine excellence in technique with powerful storytelling. Each of her verse novels evoke a specific time and place with just a few words. She develops her characters through short, poetic vignettes which describe their feelings and the circumstances of their lives.

In Crossing Stones, Helen Frost uses a formal poetic structure to simulate the sense of stepping from stone to stone while crossing a creek to tell the story of 18-year-old Muriel Jorgensen, her family and their close neighbors, the Normans. Their lives are intertwined by school, work, play, and the common bonds of their rural existence. The creek that divides their property connects them through the “crossing stones” that bridge the water just as the events of a short period of time divide their families and brings them together again.

Crossing Stones is told from the multiple points of view of four friends who have grown into young adulthood together. Their families are close and the teens, two girls and two boys, have enjoyed the familiarity of being good friends as they have grown. There is an unspoken desire by the families that these friendships will deepen into romance and that the families will become even closer in the future.

However, the teens find that as they are growing toward adulthood, their lives are separated by their individual interests and goals. Like many of Frost’s books, Crossing Stones can be used not only to study an historic event, but also to explore a poetic format in a new and creative way.

Jean Hatfield has experience as a children’s librarian, a school librarian, and a library administrator. She has served on the selection committee for major children’s book awards and is presently responsible for the selection of public library materials for youth – children and young adults – for the public library system in the largest city in Kansas, Wichita.