Moon Cake

It's the summer of '69, and the whole world is eagerly awaiting the greatest achievement in human history - men are actually going to walk on the moon! Nobody is more excited about the Apollo 11 mission than Billy Gallagher, a troubled 15-year-old from Queens, New York who lives in the shadow of his big brother, a basketball star who's been felled by a knee injury. But suddenly the spotlight is on Billy when a foolish act of vandalism gets him arrested. He's at the mercy of Mr. J, the mysterious neighborhood ice cream man whose window Billy has smashed. Mr. J chooses not to press charges, and not only that - he gives him a job, pumping soft ice cream! It's the strangest summer of Billy's life as he sweats over the moon mission, learns life lessons from his boss, harbors his brother's dark secret and agonizes over Mr. J's beautiful 18-year-old daughter, a brilliant violinist with a wild streak. She's as unreachable to Billy as the moon itself - or is she? Everything comes to a head when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon, and Billy comes up with a creation to honor the triumph of the astronauts - a creation that rocks everybody's world.


Genre: General Fiction