Full Cicada Moon

Winner of the APALA Literature Award, Marilyn C. Hilton’s Full Cicada Moon (2015) is a historical novel-in-verse that examines themes of racism and gender norms in 1969 New England. Composed of poems, the novel delves into the experiences of Mimi, a middle-school student of African American and Japanese descent who initially struggles with her identity but eventually learns to feel confident in herself. This study guide references the 2017 Puffin Books Reprint Edition, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Plot Summary

Mimi Yoshiko Oliver, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an African American father, moves from racially diverse Berkeley, California, to the small White town of Hillsborough, Vermont, when her father is offered a job as a professor at the college. Mimi and her mother take the bus for the long journey, where they are met with looks. In Vermont, everyone is more concerned more about her race than who she is as a person. At Mimi’s first day of school, she is excited to start a journal project, wherein she decides to write poems that might help her English teacher understand “who” she is. She also learns from her science teacher, Mrs. Stanton, about the school’s annual Science Groove and decides to do a project on the phases of the moon. While most people laugh at Mimi’s dreams of becoming an astronaut, Mrs. Stanton encourages her. The Olivers’s neighbor, Mr. Dell, avoids the family and is rude to Mimi. Despite the discriminatory treatment Mimi faces from everyone around her, a girl named Stacey, who recently moved from Georgia, becomes her best friend. Mr. Dell’s grand-nephew Timothy and his dog Pattress also befriend Mimi against his wishes.

Mimi desires to take shop class and doesn’t understand why only boys are allowed to. She needs to use tools to make her Science Groove project, but the shop teacher refuses to let her. However, Timothy agrees to teach Mimi how to use Mr. Dell’s tools when he isn’t home. In return, Mimi’s father teaches Timothy how to cook in secret. Mimi’s mother is also hesitant to make friends until Mimi’s father encourages her to attend a wives’ tea at the college. As a result, she befriends Dr. Haseda, a Japanese professor, and eventually teaches a class on the Japanese tea ceremony. Stacey asks Mimi to meet her on her birthday because she knows her mother won’t allow her to invite Mimi to her birthday party. This hurts Mimi and they don’t talk for a while. After meeting Emiko at the wives’ tea, Stacey’s mother finally allows Stacey to invite Mimi over. When Mimi and Stacey attend their first dance, she calls her father to pick her up early when no one talks to her. Mrs. Stanton is impressed with Mimi’s moon project, gives her an A plus, and nominates her for the A category in the Science Groove. However, someone steals her moon before the judges can pick a winner, disqualifying Mimi from winning. At the end of seventh grade, both Mimi and her English teacher understand her better through her journal writing.

On Mimi’s birthday, Timothy gives her a necklace with a moon pendant. Mimi tells Stacey she was named after the sound of cicadas and how cicadas hide underground for years until they are ready to erupt. Timothy and Mimi watch the Apollo landing together and map the astronauts’ journey. One day, Mimi decides to sit in the boy’s shop class with Stacey to protest her inability to take it. The principal suspends them, and she returns to school to find that the rest of the class organized a peaceful sit-in where all the boys sit in home economics and the girls in shop. The protest doesn’t get them seats in the classes they want, but the principal eventually offers a shop club for girls and home economics club for boys. At Mimi’s second dance, people finally notice her. Timothy surprises Mimi by showing up and giving her a limited-edition Apollo coin—he had returned home to New York earlier in the narrative when he learned his brother was missing in the war, but his brother is now safe, and Timothy is back living in Hillsborough. Stacey has a crush on Victor, the only African American boy in school. When she dances with him, other boys bully the two and eventually attack Victor for not giving them a turn.

Mimi and her mother raise turkeys to give to others on Thanksgiving, but they then decide to pardon them and give them away for people to care for. When a coyote attacks the coop, Pattress saves all of them except one and is seriously injured. Mr. Dell starts to soften to the Olivers when they find Pattress and send him a Thanksgiving meal. Mrs. Stanton surprises Mimi with the news that she nominated Mimi for a scholarship to attend a summer camp to learn about the space mission. Mimi’s Japanese cousins from Berkeley also surprise the Olivers for Christmas, and Mr. Dell finally comes over on New Year’s Day to apologize for being a bad neighbor. He explains that he dropped bombs on missions over Tokyo during World War II and felt guilty. He then surprises Mimi by taking her to fly in his plane and letting her take the yoke. In the novel’s last poem, Mimi finally knows who she is—a daughter, a neighbor, a friend, a scientist, a poet, and a future astronaut. She finally feels that she belongs after reaching for the stars all year, and that she can one day achieve her dreams.