THE MOUSE WHO ATE THE MOON

Uh-oh, did Little Mouse just eat part of the moon?

One evening, Little Mouse, tucked cozily in her bed, gazes out of her hole—a round, peek-through cut-out in the book’s page—and thinks: “The moon is beautiful...I would love to have my very own piece of the moon.” The next morning she finds a banana just outside her home and believes it’s a piece of the moon fallen from the sky. It smells so delicious that she just takes a little bite...and then another...until there’s only half a banana left. Now Little Mouse worries that because she ate part of the moon, it will no longer be round. Banana in tow, she trudges past her friends, Rabbit and Mole, confessing her crime to them. They reassure her, “Nobody can eat the moon.” But for some people (or mice), only seeing is believing, so Little Mouse’s wise friends coax her out at nightfall to a hilltop, where they see, peeking out from behind jagged cut-paper treetops, the bright, rounded top of the rising moon. By the next page, readers see Little Mouse jumping for joy in her orange-and-yellow stockings at the sight of the full moon. The richly textured, collaged mixed-media illustrations are rendered in deep indigos, spring greens and bright yellows.

This sweet, simple story provides a springboard for talks about shapes and simple fractions—and possibly what other celestial bodies can’t be eaten.