BookDragon Books for the Diverse Reader

All around the wide world, once a month (or so), we all get a glimpse of the full moon as our earth makes its perpetual orbit. “So come along on a lunar journey,” poet Marilyn Singer (author of over 85 children’s books!) invites readers, “to see the many ways we welcome our wondrous full moon.”

Singer’s lunar travels – captured in short, easy-to-read-aloud poems for even the youngest ears – begin and end on Broadway in New York City. In between, she alights in Canada’s Bay of Fundy where the full moon means “the highest tides of all,” in Turkey’s Temple of Artemis dedicated to “a goddess of the moon,” in Israel where a family gathers to celebrate the harvest festival of Sukkot, in Mali where villagers beat the drum to ward off a lunar eclipse, in Hong Kong where families enjoy the Moon Festival, in the Caribbean Sea near Curaçao where coral spawn “tiny pink packets” repopulating the ocean’s reefs, and even as far out as the International Space Station. At travels’ end, Singer provides more detailed information about her worldwide stops, perfect for parents and teachers to help enhance and enrich the travel experience for younger readers.

Veteran artist Julia Cairns makes sure to unobtrusively add diversity throughout, beginning with the welcoming cover, which shows lunar gazers from all over the world, hand-in-hand, celebrating a moment of natural wonder. Of special note are Cairns’ two-page spreads for New York City and Algonquin Park, Canada, populated by audiences comprised of people from all ethnic backgrounds, a gentle (much-welcomed) reminder that America is indeed a nation of immigrants from near and far.

Readers: Children

Published: 2011