A soothing, comforting lunar lullaby calibrated for bedtime sharing.
The moon’s beneficent presence prompts reassuring aspirations.
As if chanting a lyrical mantra, the unnamed narrator introduces a series of wishes with the repeated phrase, “If I were the moon.” As the moon, the narrator envisions painting “ripples of light on wet canvas,” “shimmer[ing] over dreams of snow,” “wax[ing] and wan[ing] over the Earth’s troubles,” and bringing “peaceful sleep for worried hearts.” The language is flowing and soporific, the repetition of “moon” slow and soothing. Finally, as the moon, the narrator would “become big and bright” with love to shine on readers. Loose, vibrant illustrations done in mixed media, including drawing inks and colored pencils, provide visual grounding for the abstract text. Using broad, fluid brush strokes, Pavlovic loosely spreads luminous washes of color to create moonstruck nocturnal scenes. The moon appears somewhere in each double-page spread, smiling and shining on fish and whales in the sea, polar bears on ice, burdened humans crossing a landscape, city cats afoot, wolves howling, and so forth. Animals depicted are slightly anthropomorphized, often smiling back at the moon. The moon’s influence can perhaps most strikingly be seen in a picture of a long line of displaced people trudging sadly along, but one babe on mother’s back is smiling in their sleep.
A soothing, comforting lunar lullaby calibrated for bedtime sharing. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77306-076-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
A warm embrace of a book.
“My family loves me, and I love them. But we don’t use words to say ‘I love you.’ ”
As a child narrates, readers see a smiling mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather bustle about a cheery, colorful home doing chores. The narrator explains how each family member expresses their love with actions: Mom “stirs her love into a pot of steaming xī fàn” (Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkien words are sprinkled throughout and defined in a glossary), Ah Gong walks the child to school in the morning, Ah Ma packs a lunch of noodles, and Dad cheers and encourages from the sidelines of a soccer game. The child also shows love, saying, “I do my best at school so they can feel proud.” Some readers may wonder: Is Chen implying that the family’s reticence when it comes to verbally expressing their love is rooted in their being Chinese? Or is this a Chinese family that happens to be less verbally demonstrative? That’s left up to readers to decide; regardless, it’s abundantly clear from the detailed spreads and expressiveness of the characters that they are full of love for one another, with or without words. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A warm embrace of a book. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-42839-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A quiet, warm look at the bond between grandfather and grandson.
After a visit, an African-American grandfather and grandson say farewell under a big yellow moon. Granpa tells Max it is the same moon he will see when he gets home.
This gently told story uses Max’s fascination with the moon’s ability to “tag along” where his family’s car goes as a metaphor for his grandfather’s constant love. Separating the two relatives is “a swervy-curvy road” that travels up and down hills, over a bridge, “past a field of sleeping cows,” around a small town and through a tunnel. No matter where Max travels, the moon is always there, waiting around a curve or peeking through the trees. But then “[d]ark clouds tumbled across the night sky.” No stars, no nightingales and no moon are to be found. Max frets: “Granpa said it would always shine for me.” Disappointed, Max climbs into bed, missing both the moon and his granpa. In a dramatic double-page spread, readers see Max’s excitement as “[s]lowly, very slowly, Max’s bedroom began to fill with a soft yellow glow.” Cooper uses his signature style to illustrate both the landscape—sometimes viewed from the car windows or reflected in the vehicle’s mirror—and the expressive faces of his characters. Coupled with the story’s lyrical text, this is a lovely mood piece.
A quiet, warm look at the bond between grandfather and grandson. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: June 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-23342-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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