Dim the Moon
written and illustrated by E.G. Creel
A too-bright moon keeps the animals awake in Creel’s picture book.
When a bright moon shines over the farm and forest, the rooster crows to wake the other creatures. The birds, cows, frogs, and barn cat all wonder what is making the sky so bright. An owl makes a plea to the heavens: “She flew to the wind and asked with care, / ‘Could you, please dim the moon up there?’” The wind responds, blowing clouds across the moon, and soon the rest of the animals find peace and get some rest before dawn. The author’s couplets have an offbeat scansion, changing the rhythm to suit the needs of the story rather than the poetry. The rhymes are consistent throughout, with vocabulary words accessible to emergent and newly independent readers. The real draw here is the manipulated photography: Creel’s illustrations are pieced together from photographs she took of items from her garden and pantry. The moon that’s so bright is the center of a moonflower; the rooster sits on a wasps’ nest; and the frogs are made of pickles. The collages of these photographs give each page a highly textured image that draws in the eye, challenging the reader to see both the illustrated figures and the natural materials that created them. (Creel even has a selfie reflected in the owl’s eyes.)
A charming bedtime tale that combines accessible poetry with fascinating, complex photo-collage.