Hello, Moon!

April 14, 2014
Bedtime can be lonely, even with a pet cat for company, so a boy decides to chat with the moon outside his window. His questions, and the imaginary play they inspire, range from quotidian (“Do you like chocolate ice cream?) to philosophical (he imagines Moon has a “billion, trillion gazillion” friends, “But they’re all so far away”). This is a sweet book, with lush, dense acrylics—Cort’s gorgeously blue night sky makes every other color glow—and a comforting message that even a literal dark night of the soul will give way to a more confident sense of self (“I’m here” the boy tells the moon before drifting off, “Anytime you want to talk”). But despite the conceit, Simon (the Horrid Henry books) and Cort (Aliens Love Underpants!) don’t make the Moon much of a focal point. When the boy wonders whether the Moon likes to pretend it’s a pirate, it dons an eye patch, but most of the time it’s absent from the boy’s reveries altogether or a placidly smiling figure in the sky, more distantly maternal than buddy-buddy. Ages 3–5.

March 15, 2014
Children who have their own bedrooms must face that moment each night when they feel utterly alone; the time before sleep may seem endless. This thoughtful young protagonist strikes up a conversation with the moon: "Can we talk? I get lonely down here sometimes. What I want to know is...." His questions run the gamut from the moon's taste in games, food and animals to its range of vision. Can the smiling countenance see inside people's homes or into the ocean's depths? Reflecting on his own situation, the boy wonders if the moon has friends--and, in a kindly gesture, offers to listen anytime. Composed with an abundance of reassuring, rounded shapes and images high on the child-appeal scale (pirates, ice cream cones, playgrounds), Cort's acrylic scenes contrast the predominately cool, blue nighttime environment with a variety of warm greens punctuated by bursts of orange. Prominent among these is the child's striped cat, which appears as a playful and comforting presence throughout, and the identically colored tiger who saunters out of the bushes when named as a favorite. The questions Simon has her protagonist pose--by turns spirited, playful and genuinely sweet--signal understanding of and respect for a child's emotional and intellectual capacities. Judging from all the childhood insomnia out there, there can never be too many bedtime stories, especially when they model a strategy as successful as this one. (Picture book. 3-6)

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May 1, 2014

PreS-Gr 1-A young, smiling boy sees the full moon outside his bedroom window and asks if it likes the same things he does-bouncing on his bed, going down "the twisty, turny slide" at the park, eating chocolate ice cream, and playing pirates. He asks if the moon can "see the city...under the sea...the highest mountain...[and] the whole wide world." On a spread of children playing on a grassy hill in the moonlight, he asks, "Do you have lots of friends, Moon?" The next spread shows the boy flying through space in the "Milky Way" near the constellations Leo, Pegasus, and Little Bear. The boy returns to Earth and bids his friend "Good night." Cheerful, acrylic cartoon illustrations depict the action on single pages and full spreads. There are plenty of picture books out there about the moon and the wonders of the natural world, and there's nothing particularly engaging about this one. Eric Carle's Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me (S & S., 1986), Liz Garton Scanlon's lyrical All the World (S. & S., 2009) and Deborah Diesen's The Pout-Pout Fish in the Big-Big Dark (Farrar, 2010) are better choices.-Laura Scott, Farmington Community Library, MI

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2014
Preschool-K A cheery round moon with a small upturned nose is a little boy's nighttime confidant in this offering by the author of the Horrid Henry series. A foil for the tot's curiosity, the celestial being is peppered with dozens of questions. Does the moon like ice cream and bouncing on a bed? What does he pretend? Can he see everything the boy can or more? Cort's illustrations reflect the little guy's imagination: a mermaid swims with him beneath the sea, a slide twists around an ice-cream cone, and children cavort in a meadow under the stars. Royal-blue skies give the evening a happy look mirroring the child's blue-walled bedroom, and the items surrounding the boya tabby cat, a stuffed toy monkeyhave counterparts in his conjured world, with a happy-looking tiger roaming a jungle and simians sitting in a palm tree. The moon shines amiably down in most spreads and lends its moonbeam light to others. A sweet book of reassurance, this will stand out among the many bedtime volumes available on library shelves.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2014
At bedtime, a lonely, imaginative boy queries the full moon in a stream-of-consciousness series of questions until he falls asleep--"Do you have a bouncy bed?" "Do you have lots of friends, Moon?" "Can you see under the sea?" Cheerful, cartoony acrylic illustrations on double-page spreads depict each imagined scenario.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)