December 9, 2013

Moons

So as these posts often start, this one began with me purchasing two books about moons in the same week, Emma Yarlett's Sidney, Stella and the Moon and Larry Phifer and Danny Popovici's World on a String. There are a few others out there I'll mention in this post, but not surprisingly the art of these books is very rounded rather than angular and each of the books heavily features circles and rounded objects. These curves, of course, are reminiscent of the moon itself and serve to draw attention to the titular character, the moon.

Yarlett's book features two siblings, Sidney and Stella, who do everything together except share. One day they're fighting over a ball, and they lose control as it bounces out the window...and smashes the moon! Together, they have to find a way to replace what they broke. Take a look:


I'll be the first to admit that the text of Phifer's book is didactic and a little heavy-handed, but Popvici's illustrations are really what made the book for me. A kickstarter project that you can check out here, the book is about a lonely boy who befriends a balloon, and when he loses it he pretends that his balloon is now a part of the sky (aka the moon). Again, the story is lackluster but the illustrations are quite beautiful:





Kevin Henkes' Kitten's First Full Moon, the story of a hungry kitten who thinks the moon is a bowl of milk, won the Caldecott a few years back, and it's not wonder. The book is expertly illustrated in black and white, and each illustration thoroughly utilizes the white space of the page:








Last are two books from Barefoot Books, Lin Yi's Lantern: A Moon Festival Tale by Brenda Williams and Benjamin Lacombe and I Took the Moon for a Walk by Carolyn Curtis and Alison Jay. Williams' and Lacombe's picturebook is about a boy named Lin Yi who wants a lantern for the Moon Festival, but must purchase the things his house needs first with the little money that he has. Lin Yi spends the duration of the book bargaining for the one thing he wants--but will he get it? The illustrations are lovely and almost sun-kissed, again recalling the moon and its brightness. Finally, Curtis' and Jay's book is a sort of folktale about a boy who walks with the moon, helping it get home safely. Check out the illustrations for both:



That's it for moons. See you all in two weeks!

Mooningly yours,
Mel

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