So that's an interesting title...

Maybe there is just something wrong with my mind and the way I think. Maybe no one else even thinks twice about the title of the book Shooting the Moon.
I just absolutely loved this book. I thought it was beautiful and wonderful and simple and complex and powerful. Frances O'Roark Dowell is a truly blessed author. She is excellent at character development and putting the reading right inside the character's head.
The last book that of her's that read was Ten Miles Past Normal, which I loved as well.
Shooting is told from the POV of Jamie a twelve year old girl who lives the on the US Army base of Ft. Hood in Killeen, TX. Her father is a Colonel and pretty much the top guy at Ft. Hood. Jamie and her brother TJ have always grown up loving their country and the army. Their family is tight and strong and pretty cool. The Colonel is a serious man who loves his family first, then the army, then football, as Jamie sees it.
TJ is set to go off to college in the fall but instead, he enlists in the army because his best friend is MIA in Vietnam. Jamie is thrilled. She can't wait to hear all about war and she wishes she could enlist as well. The Colonel and Jamie's mom aren't quite so excited and try to talk TJ out of it, but his mind is made up.
While TJ is in country, he sends letters home to his mom and dad and undeveloped film home to Jamie. Jamie learns to develop the film and learns a lot from what she sees and from getting to know the other young soldiers at Ft. Hood.
Man...man...this is just a really solid, good, good historical fiction book. I can't see anyone not loving the way this story is told and the questions and emotions that it will raise.