The Middle Moffat

By Eleanor Estes and Louis Slobodkin

A 1943 Newbery Honor Book

Who is Jane Moffat, anyway? She isn't the youngest in the family, and she isn't the oldest-she is always just Jane. How boring. So Jane decides to become a figure of mystery . . . the mysterious "Middle Moffat." But being in the middle is a lot harder than it looks.

In between not rescuing stray dogs, and losing and finding best friends, Jane must secretly look after the oldest inhabitant of Cranbury . . . so he can live to be one hundred. Between brushing her hair from her eyes and holding up her stockings, she has to help the girls' basketball team win the championship. And it falls to Jane-the only person in town with enough courage-to stand up to the frightful mechanical wizard, Wallie Bangs.

Jane is so busy keeping Cranbury in order that she barely has time to be plain old Jane. Sometimes the middle is the most exciting place of all. . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 1, 2001
• ISBN: 9780547617435

Eleanor Estes

Eleanor Estes (1906-1988) grew up in West Haven, Connecticut, which she renamed Cranbury for her classic stories about the Moffat and Pye families. A children’s librarian for many years, she launched her writing career with the publication of The Moffats in 1941. Two of her outstanding books about the Moffats—Rufus M. and The Middle Moffat—were awarded Newbery Honors, as was her short novel The Hundred Dresses. She won the Newbery Medal for Ginger Pye.  

Reviews for The Middle Moffat

[fingerpost_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not so much a novel as a short story collection, "The Middle Moffat" tells 11 tales focusing on Jane Moffat, who is neither the youngest nor the oldest in the family. These slightly old fashioned stories are light, sweet, and sometimes funny. Estes does a good job portraying the way a child thinks.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the one I read about a dozen times, that encouraged me to read all by Estes and then everything else I could find in the library that was remotely like it. Even today I have that sunny perspective about life, that people are nice and families stick up for each other and girls can get into mischief... Like Cleary, Nesbit, and even Narnia (which btw I still don't see the religion in).

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Read again for the GR Newbery club that I host, Jan 2016.  Still loving it.  Can't believe I never noticed how Mr. Buckle, the oldest inhabitant, blows cotton to the birds for their nests.  That might be a good use for pill bottle cotton scraps this spring....  I also appreciate the relevance of the ladies' club, the Browning Society, being on the same decluttering kick that many ppl are on now.  We're doing it the KonMari way, and they did it because they learned of the teachings of Thoreau, but it's the same idea.  

It's just such a sweet story, with enough underlying poignancy to make it richer than a casual reader (which I've been, every other time I've read it) consciously grasps.  For example, the fact that the Moffats aren't too proud to accept the hand-me-downs from the ladies is interesting.  And when Janey expresses to Mr. Buckle that now that he's made it to 100, he should try for 200... he agrees, and she says, And they might celebrate that birthday in the Yale Bowl.  Maybe then I could be a wave."  Neither of the friends stop to think about the fact that Janey will be 110 in a hundred years, of course....

I do recommend reading the Moffat books in order if you can - there is some development, the family circumstances and home change as the children grow, etc.  And two more books about the family and their kin were recognized by Newbery committees, so we in GR will be reading them later.

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[sparklegirl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

this is just a random story of a girl in the moffats family in the 20's.