Review by Booklist Review
The moon illuminates the forest, where an owl flies off with its prey and a fox tenses to pounce. Nearby, bristles rustle, feathers quiver, and beetles lock horns. Next, a pheasant escapes from the fox, while a hedgehog grabs a beetle and flees. Each scene follows the fox as it chases different prey and eventually catches a wild goose to feed its family. But each scene also includes other forest animals as they hunt, forage, and observe their surroundings. The broad double-page illustrations offer sweeping views of the moonlit forest, portrayed in fine, shaded pencil drawings with watercolor washes. Soft blues, greens, and browns predominate in the shadowy scenes, while sweeping lines and rounded forms create a sense of life and movement. Neither sentimental nor brutal, the beautifully written text reflects the reality of forest life, where animals hunt for survival. A fine addition to classroom discussions of animals at night or predation, this lovely picture book might also be a memorable follow-up to a walk in the forest.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-MacCarthy skillfully renders the sights and sounds of a forest under the "great white eye of the moon" in this bedtime story. The lush illustrations fill every corner of the spreads, exposing the nocturnal activity of forest animals. Using colored pencils, she captures the silvery light of a moon filtered through dense trees, illuminating a diverse array of flora and fauna native to the English countryside that inspired her. Readers will linger over these detailed pictures that are teeming with life: deer, snails, rats, badgers, foxes, bats, and more. Tinged with moonlight, the images have an almost magical feel, but the story stays rooted in reality through the text, which reads like the field notes of a biologist with a penchant for drama. The narrative is complex, using advanced syntax and vocabulary, and is set in swirling, stylized fonts, making Moon Forest better suited for shared, rather than independent, reading. The book is an excellent entry point for teaching about forest habitats and descriptive writing techniques.-Nora Clancy, Teachers College Community School, New York City (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"Freedom / and survival!" exult the last words of text in this exquisitely rendered full-spread, full-bleed series of watercolor-andcolored-pencil images. The moon illuminates all, as the forest animals go about their nocturnal lives, real animals doing what animals do: Both stags and beetles lock horns; a magnificent snowy owl swoops to seize a rat; a hedgehog snacks on one of those beetles. The text is printed on ribbons of white that are overlaid on the pictures, like scraps of torn paper; they are occasionally hard to read as the text curves and scatters. Although there is no blood and gore, the circle of life (and death) is clear: These animals depend on one another for food, for survival. If the fox, from whom the hare has escaped, does not find a meal for its kits, they will die. In the end, the fox brings down a goose and brings it home to the kits in a flurry of downed feathers. While the animals are delicately depicted, there is not a trace of anthropomorphism or sentimentality. The silvery moonlight allows MacCarthy to show the texture of leaf and fur, feather and fish scale, with honesty and beauty. A bracing and beautiful antidote to cute-animals-in-the-forest stories. (Picture book. 5-9)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
