Review by New York Times Review
I know A family who regularly skinny-dip in the Atlantic after the sun has set. I also know a family who live in a gated community, in a house stocked with more guns than they have hands to fire their guns. I feel lucky to have been born to a mother who runs outside at the first sound of thunder, greeting each storm. From her, I learned to love the night, the ocean, the storm, but even so, at times an uneasiness creeps in with the dark. Fear rears its head and I wonder, who taught us to be scared? Who told us night is a fearful realm? "MONSTER is my friend." Emily Tetri's heroine, Tiger, makes this bold statement to her family in the graphic-novel-style tiger VS. NIGHTMARE (Macmillan, 64 pp., $17.99; ages 6 to io). Monster, in nightly bedtime battles, goes head-to-head with nightmares that come for Tiger. When Monster's powers begin to fail, Tiger steps up, taking on a nightmare by denouncing its reality. But real or not, nightmares affect us, and so the true victory in Tetri's book comes in unlikely collaborations and creativity in the face of terror. It comes from befriending a "monster." WHICH MAKES me wonder, how can we stop fear before it ever blooms? An answer exists in three gorgeous picture books that celebrate the chaos, calm and color of night. Kitty Crowther's stories of the NIGHT (Gecko, 64 pp., $17.99; ages 4 and up) IS a blissful release into the world of wonder. I would like to give this book as a gift to every child, every person in my life. Its magic is first evident in its revealing dedication: "For Sara Donati, who slept one night at my house, and dreamed that I made a book called 'Short Stories of the Night' with a pink cover and a handwritten title." Crowther has made Donati's dream come true. This magical totem of a book bursts with beauty, absurdity, generosity and the surprise of the natural world. Crowther makes new myths as she presents a mama bear who tells her child three bedtime stories. In one story, the Night Guardian, with her small gong and illuminated hair, tells Earth's creatures (fish, ants, mushrooms, ermines and humans) when it is time for bed, uniting all life in the magical, unconscious hours of dream and possibility. In another, Zhora, a brave girl who hopes to find the darkest blackberry, is rewarded for her courage: a berry as large as her tiny body and a new friend in Jacko Molio the bat. The third story introduces bearded old Bo, who lives in an abandoned owl nest, where perhaps the owls' nocturnal tendencies have rubbed off on him. Bo is restless. He heads "out into the woods to look for some sleep." Bo's friend Otto, the poet and otter, suggests Bo might enjoy a swim. "It's far too chilly." So Otto advises, "Go in with your coat on then." I hail this triumphant moment where joyful silliness trumps the chokehold of "safety" that flattens some children's literature. Bo has a lovely swim and even finds one of Otto's stone poems under the water. Satisfied and delighted, blessings now counted - swimming, night, bed, poetry, good friends - sleep comes easily to Bo. Crowther's book has all the delightful strangeness of Margaret Wise Brown and Garth Williams's classic "Little Fur Family," but "Stories of the Night" takes place in a hand-wrought, colored-pencil forest made resplendent with rich tones, particularly a shocking pink, so warm and cheerful it fills the woods with joy. An opening illustration shows a bear mother and child returning from a sunset stroll. The darkness is visible on them, graphite fingerprints that feel human, considered and kind. In the distance, their cabin glows with the warmth of the living, while all around them we find this pink - not the Pepto of a blinged-out princess, but rather a regal pink of sunsets, cozy fires, pinebranch tents and a sleeping mushroom family; the pink of wonder, of forests and grateful nights without fear. IN A BIG MOONCAKE FOR LITTLE STAR (Little, Brown, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 3 to 7), Grace Lin brings us her first picture book in eight years, after middle-grade books including the Newbury Honor-winning "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon." Little Star's mother sets a freshly baked mooncake out to cool on the night sky. The rich darkness of the book's pages is cut by the glorious gold of the stars and the child's bright smile as she munches down a full mooncake every month. Her crumbs become astral bodies. The new moon arrives when her nighttime snack is finally consumed. Time to bake another cake! Lin takes what's large and perhaps overwhelming - planetary motions - and translates the scientific into story. Our child protagonist has a hand in the mechanism of the universe. If that's not empowering, if that's not fear-busting, I don't know what is. ROXANE MARIE GALLIEZ and Seng Soun Ratanavanh's gentle, gloriously colorful and imaginative time for bed, miyuki (Princeton Architectural Press, 32 pp., $17.95; ages 4 to 8) also deals with cycles - the cycles a child might pass through on her way to sleep. While this is a bedtime book, it also honors the schedules children set for themselves before bed. Miyuki's grandfather, wise and patient, allows Miyuki time for her own rituals of readying body and mind. He confirms his granddaughter's agenda, rather than supplanting it with his own. Together they gather the snails, prepare for the Dragonfly Queen's arrival with water carrots, turnips and radishes, cover the cats in a cozy blanket, dance, bathe and of course, most important, enjoy a bedtime story. Thus, we grow compassion. We steer clear of hurry, stress, fear and all its attendant reactions: cruelty, isolation and control. Trusting in the cycles of nature, the wisdom of children and the world of wonder is central to all three of these beautiful books. They are lap-size portals to worlds where there is no fear, even in the face of night, mystery and the glorious unknown. Samantha hunt is the author of novels including "Mr. Splitfoot" and "The Seas," which was recently republished with an introduction by Maggie Nelson.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 11, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Against the backdrop of a black sky, Mama and Little Star bake a giant mooncake. But as she puts the cake out to cool, Mama admonishes her daughter not to touch it. And she doesn't until she wakes up in the night. Then, it's pat, pat, pat over to the mooncake, where she nibbles just a bit. Each night, there's more nibbling, causing the mooncake to change shape, until it's just a crescent. That's when Mama sees what's happened, but she isn't mad. It's just time to make another mooncake. Although the story is slight (and there's no direct aligning of the mooncake with the stages of the moon, either in text or note), the gouache illustrations are excellent. Mother and daughter, both dressed in star-covered black jumpsuits that add bits of light to inky backgrounds, are intriguing characters who come alive through facial expressions. Little Star's impish looks are worth the price of admission. This has no roots in Chinese mythology, Lin says, but she associates it with Asian moon festivals. A complementary read for those holidays.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Nighttime paintings by Lin (Where the Mountain Meets the Moon) add magic to this fable about why the moon waxes and wanes. The story's events unfold against the velvety black of the night sky as Mama and Little Star, dressed in black pajamas spangled with yellow stars, work on their mooncake (an Asian holiday treat, Lin explains in an author's note) in the kitchen. Mama takes the cake out of the oven and lays it "onto the night sky to cool." She tells Little Star not to touch it, and Little Star attends but awakens in the middle of the night and remembers the cake. A double-page spread shows Little Star's speculative glance on the left and the huge golden mooncake-or is it the round, golden full moon?-on the right. Whichever it is, Little Star takes a nibble from the edge, another the next night, and so on until the moon wanes to a delicate crescent. Lin successfully combines three distinctive and memorable elements: a fable that avoids seeming contrived, a vision of a mother and child living in cozy harmony, and a night kitchen of Sendakian proportions. Ages 4-8. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Little Star's mother admonishes her not to eat the giant mooncake, which she left cooling in the night sky, but Little Star has her own ideas. Little Star makes a mischievous choice. "Yum!" Each night, she wakes from her bed in the sky and nibbles from the giant mooncake. "'Little Star!' her mama said, shaking her head even though her mouth was curving. ' You ate the big mooncake again, didn't you?'" Rather than scolding, Mama responds with a kind offer to bake a new mooncake. Observant eyes will recognize that the final pages showing Little Star and her mama baking a new mooncake are a repeat of the front papers-a purposeful hint that the ritual is repeated monthly as Little Star causes the phases of the moon. Artwork is gouache on watercolor paper. Each page has a glossy black background and small white font. Little Star and her mother have gentle countenances twinkling with merriment. Both wear star-studded black pajamas that are distinguishable from the inky sky only by their yellow stars and the occasional patch of Little Star's exposed tummy. The cherubic Little Star floats through the darkness, her mooncake crumbs leaving a trail of stardust in the sky. VERDICT The relationship between Little Star and her mother offers a message of empowerment and reassurance. Lin's loving homage to the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is sure to become a bedtime favorite.-Lisa Taylor, Florida State College, Jacksonville © Copyright 2018. 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 Horn Book Review
Little Star and her mother bake a mooncake, the sweet treat associated with the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. The ingredients for their super-sized mooncake cover a mammoth table, because these two make their home in the night sky. No walls close them in, darkness surrounds them, and their black pajamas are covered in luminous yellow stars. Look closely at their celestial kitchen to see nods to constellations (a large and small dipper hang from a shelf) and even some spilled milk in the shape of the Milky Way. Little Stars mother hangs the Big Mooncake in the sky to cool, reminding her daughter not to touch it until given permission. But the girls hunger overcomes her, and she sneaks off repeatedly during the night (pat pat pat go her feet) to snack on the mooncake (nibble, nibbleyum!), her trail of crumbs forming so many galaxies in the great inky-black sky. In one spread, we see twelve separate instances of Little Star nibbling on the mooncake as it gradually shrinks in size and shape to a thin crescent. Mama, hardly surprised, agrees to make another. Its all mesmerizing--Little Stars astral home; her outsized sense of mischief; the dwindling cake as a stand-in for the waning moon; and Lins pleasing, soothing text, perfect for reading aloud to little moon-watchers here on Earth. julie Danielson (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Little Star has trouble resisting the Big Mooncake that Mama has hung in the sky in Lin's (When the Sea Turned Silver, 2016, etc.) luminous departure from her usual block-print style.After Little Star and her mama, both wearing jet-black pajamas adorned with bright yellow stars, bake a huge yellow mooncake, Mama reminds Little Star to leave it in the sky to cool. Of course Little Star tries, but she wakes in the night, unable to resist taking a tiny nibble. Mama surely won't notice. Each subsequent night, Little Star steals another bite, and soon observant readers may realize what is happening: The Big Mooncake is waning from a full moon to a new moon. Lin's storytelling is both clever and radiant. Painted in gouache against perfectly black pages, the characters' pajamas have no edges, only the stars defining the separation between foreground and background. The mooncake gleams against the black as well, crumbs scattering like stars in the skya visual delight, suffusing the book with a feeling of otherworldliness that is offset by Little Star's childlike authenticity and her loving relationship with Mama. An author's note on the jacket flap indicates that while this story is not rooted in Chinese cosmology, it is Lin's homage to the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, her "favorite Asian holiday."A warm and glowing modern myth. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
