LIFE ON THE MOON

A lonely 12-year-old grieving his parents’ breakup finds his purpose on the Moon.

Leo Brightstar, his dad, and his dad’s friend Sally are the vanguard of a new lunar colony. As soon as they arrive, the adults are dispatched on a mission, leaving a confused, hurting Leo alone. He rapidly learns that the Moon has its own rules, both those enforced by the Constable, and those followed by the Moon’s indigenous life forms—who, by existing, break the Constable’s first rule: “There is no life on the Moon.” Swanson’s Constable could be the direct descendant of Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts, and the Moon is as seemingly nonsensical as Wonderland. Leo befriends a Valrooten, an impossibly cute, tentacled creature whose destiny is to be eaten on its birthday by a Hortle, “an extremely large mouth with three stumpy legs.” This is the fate of all 354 Valrootens: One is eaten each day, resulting in an endless cycle since a new Valrooten is also born every day. Leo decides that saving the Valrootens from the Hortles will be his mission; mystifyingly, the Valrootens want none of it. Employing a light touch, Swanson tackles colonialism and ecological balance, but the story’s heart is Leo’s painful acceptance of what he cannot change. Behr’s plentiful, amiable cartoons depict most human characters with pale skin, and a key secondary character presents Black.

A heartfelt human story on a not-so-lifeless Moon.