Synopsis
While tired farmers and their families are in bed, the harvest moon silently climbs into the sky and starts working its magic. For some, it is the nightly signal to rise and shine. It is time to hunt, to work, or to play in the shadows. For a little girl and her cat, it is an invitation to enjoy the wonders of the night and a last flood of light before the short days of winter set in. With an evocative text and radiant illustrations, this companion to Twilight Comes Twice offers a glimpse of nature’s nightlife long after bedtime.
Publishers Weekly
Like their Twilight Comes Twice, this quiet meditation on the beauty of the harvest moon is a visual and linguistic pleasure. The book begins with the moon's rising, "lifting free of the treetops" and shining through a girl's bedroom window, then moves outward to explore the ways in which the moon's light affects other people and animals. Kiesler's oil paintings gleam with soft light as the girl and her cat watch luna moths and admire the fall foliage of the birch trees "double-dipped in moonlight." Text and art together create a sense of wonder at the beauty of open milkweed pods, "like tiny moonlings floating up to their mother" or a spider web etched in moonlight. Beginning with the close-up of the girl and her cat, poet and artist widen the perspective to incorporate other nighttime activitya plane overhead, a night watchman, various animals and eventually, the pull of the moon on the earth's waters as it "grab[s] whole oceans with its arms." Fletcher's lyrical, child-friendly images will linger in readers' minds. With a gentle nod to Margaret Wise Brown, the child's morning is the moon's setting ("a sleepy head winking falling slow motion onto its pillow"), and the book ends appropriately with the girl bidding, "Good night, harvest moon." Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.