SUN AND MOON HAVE A TEA PARTY

Locked in a bitter dispute about the nature of the world, Sun and Moon can’t both be right, can they?

Enjoying tea and cookies together above the Earth late one afternoon, the sun and the moon discover the vast difference in their experiences. When Moon notes, “Children have to go to sleep,” Sun responds, “Wrong!...Children have to go to school.” Sun and Moon recount their understanding of what children, parents, streets, birds, and even streams are like, each one’s description in direct opposition to the other’s. As the disagreement becomes increasingly heated, along comes Cloud, who offers a way for the two to see the world from a different view. It’s a straightforward but effective story, with quiet, rounded illustrations creating a soft and accessible universe. Sun, Moon, and Cloud have simple but expressive line-drawn faces that drive the text’s dramatic tension and satisfying resolution. Repeated use of one family—what appears as a white-skinned, black-haired mom; a peach-skinned, blond dad; a white-skinned, flaxen-haired child; and a white-skinned, black-haired child—gives the celestial debate some human resonance, and people depicted in city scenes include a range of skin tones, ages, and abilities. The changing behavior of morning glories under Sun’s and Moon’s respective gazes is a particularly clever detail that may have readers curious to learn more.

A thoughtful, gentle introduction to the limits of one’s own perspective.