2015 Gift Guide (No. 2): For the Lunar Lover
December 8, 2015 § 3 Comments
In my 2013 Holiday Gift Guide, I ran a post dedicated to parents desperate for a break from incessant nightly rounds of Goodnight, Gorilla. It strikes me that the two books that I’m discussing today (Ages 2-5) would line up beautifully alongside those others. They are perfect bedtime stories. They are perfect for reading every single night (because, trust me, that’s what you’ll be doing). They are quintessentially sweet, dear, and innocent. And if, after reading them, you want to clutch them to your own chest, I promise not to tell.
We begin with Ida Pearle’s stunning The Moon Is Going to Addy’s House (Ages 2-5). Shhhh, I know I’m not supposed to pick favorites, but if I were to call out the illustrations of only one book this year, it would be this. Brooklyn-based Ida Pearle has got to be one of the most evocative children’s artists today, using her talents in figurative drawing and cut-paper collage (her choice of papers, many of them Italian or Japanese-designed, is sheer eye candy) to produce something at once charmingly old-fashioned and refreshingly modern. In my old store in Chicago, we used to display and sell Pearle’s wall prints. I’m positively giddy that her art is finding a more accessible expression now in picture books (Caldecott Committee, are you listening?).
Pearle’s subject—the moon—is a common one in children’s literature. For good reason. Since my children first started to become aware of the world beyond their fingertips, they have been fascinated with the moon (remember this?). Even now at eight and five years of age, they will interrupt whatever conversation we are having in the car to exclaim exuberantly, “Look, there’s the moon!” They feel a personal, intimate relationship with this glowing sphere that seems to follow us as we drive up and down and around our neighborhood streets. Apparently, they are not alone in feeling this way.
Pearle’s book is reminiscent of an older favorite in our house—Carolyn Curtis and Alison Jay’s I Took the Moon for a Walk—where the young narrator pays homage to the way the moon seems to keep step with him as he walks home one evening. In The Moon is Going to Addy’s House, the child’s journey has a more contemporary context, immensely relatable to children, as Addy travels by car from a friend’s house in the city (“Addy, your play date is over,” calls Mama. “It’s time to go home!”), down the bustling, summertime streets, across a long bridge, and into the rolling hills of her home in the country.
On each page, as the sky increasingly darkens and the city lights fade away, Addy and her little sister crane their heads to follow the moon. If they lose the moon behind a tree or a cloud or a boulder, it is “only for a moment.”
The narrative voice is replete with the naive egocentricity of a young child: The moon was going to my house! Even during bath and pajama time, the moon is never far.
At last, Addy comes to her favorite moment of the day: “my nighttime dance,” in which she cartwheels through the grass in her pink-footed pajamas against the brilliant backdrop of the moon.
Carried inside and tucked into bed by her loving parents, the girl reminds herself of the friendliness of the night. Of the moon (and a family) that “waits and watches over me, always.”
There is similar nighttime romping—albeit of the less picturesque and more adorable kind—in Patrick McDonnell’s Thank You and Good Night (Ages 2-5), a story about a girl named Maggie who hosts a sleepover for her stuffed bunny (Clement) and his two pajama-clad friends, an elephant (Jean) and a bear (Alan Alexander). McDonnell first stole my heart with The Monster’s Monster, and he endows this new story with the same understated affection and gentle humor (including great names).
The three friends are determined to take full advantage of their togetherness: jumping on the bed, playing hide and seek, doing the “chicken dance” followed by restorative yoga poses, wishing on a shooting star, and enjoying a bedtime story that Maggie reads to them.
Maggie’s relationship with these three animals reminds me of my all-time favorite series for two and three year olds: Polly Dunbar’s books about a girl named Tilly, who lives in a yellow house with a litany of anthropomorphic animals, for whom she is both a silly playmate and a nurturing caregiver. Maggie, like Tilly, is exercising control in an imaginative domain of her own making, entirely outside adult supervision and participation.
Yet, Maggie is just the gentle touch that these animals need to settle down for sleep. As the moon emits its soft light outside the darkened room, Maggie recites a list of things for which they can all be thankful. There are few things that make me want to go back and have kids all over again, to savor those little hands to hold, those little foreheads to kiss. This page is one.
The sun, the moon,
a red balloon.
Hiding, seeking
fun with friends,
a shooting star wish
that it never ends.
Cozy pajamas,
a happy surprise,
night birds singing
sweet lullabies.
Bedtime stories,
old and new,
read with love,
to me,
by you.
In their own ways, The Moon is Going to Addy’s House and Thank You and Good Night both end on a note of gratitude. Gratitude for companionship and for constancy. They make the listener feel safe. And important. And loved. And they make us parents feel like drawing out those nighttime dances and subsequent snuggles just a little bit longer, to embrace the majesty of the moon and the fleetingness of time—before the sun comes up again.
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Review copies provided by Penguin and Little Brown respectively. All opinions are my own. Amazon.com affiliate links are provided mainly for ease and reference–although I prefer that we all shop local when we can!
What to Read to Your Kids 
Thank you for sharing these two beautiful new books, and thank you for your continued support of I Took the Moon for a Walk!
You are most welcome. Thank YOU (and Alison Jay) for creating such an enduring metaphor for children!
[…] is at the top. How I used to love reading stories about the moon to my kids (like this, this, and this). For our littlest ones, the world outside their windows is big and new and constantly changing. […]