BEAUTIFUL MOON

A young boy’s prayer brings home to readers all the people who need prayers in our world.

Over a busy, rushing, noisy city, “The amber orb floats, / washing the night / with a radiant glow.” A small black boy spies it when he hops out of bed to say his forgotten prayers, and underneath its beauty, he prays for the homeless, for an end to wars, for the sick and the hungry, and for those closest to him. Juxtaposed with the portrait of this young innocent kneeling at his bedside, the spreads that follow are stark: a woman bundled on a park bench, her belongings next to her; a man on a commuter train thinking of his faraway soldier daughter; a man in a hospital bed wishing for sleep to come; a couple searching bare cupboards and a line at a soup kitchen. Bolden and Velasquez hint at an equation between God’s watchfulness and care with the light of the moon; in each of these mixed-media–and-oil scenes, the harvest moon shines down on all the diversity of the world and its many problems, and when the boy is snuggled back in bed, “the beautiful moon goes on its way.”

Prayer may seem like something from ancient history for many young children; this beautiful book brings prayer to the modern world and hauntingly shows just how needed it is.