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.