The Moon Shines Down

The Moon Shines Down By Margaret Wise Brown
Illustrated by Linda Bleck

My first impressions of this book were how beautiful it is. I love the bold colors and the bright yellow moon that appears each of the pages. I wasn't the first to read it though. I live in a house full of book lovers and as soon as I had opened it, glanced through it and then set it down, it was swept up by Aspen (8) who gathered Cedar (5) and Olive (4) around and started reading it to them. She was halfway through before I had finished going through the mail. So my first experience with this book was as a listener. Aspen struggled a little at first with the rhythm of the book, as did I the first time I read it. The second reading was smooth though. The story starts with a little Dutch boy sleeping "In his flat Dutch Land of cheese and creams." You then travel with the cute little koala bear around the world visiting Switzerland (beautiful Alps pictures.) The "Far, Far East," Mexico, France, Australia, England, Africa, "my neighborhood" at Christmas and the Ocean Deep. It ends with the koala asleep in his tree dreaming of all of the places that he has just "visited."

The book is a story "prayer" with a slight Christmas theme to it. I like the book. It is long enough and has enough depth to be instructive if I wanted to take it and turn it into a geography lesson, yet it's short enough and captivating enough to be a part of the bedtime routine. The story of how the book came about, found in a forgotten trunk of the late Margaret Wise Brown (of Goodnight Moon fame) is fun also. My personal thanks and applause go out to the illustrator, Linda Bleck (of The Pepper Dog fame.) I love the illustrations. I am in no way an artist and I can't comment on her technique or any other aspects of her work, but I know that she has made this book beautiful. Each page is bright and engaging, something that must be a bit hard since the story takes place at night.

If you want to find out more about this book, you can follow this link:

http://www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/product_detail.asp?sku=140031299X

This is my first "book review" as a book review blogger. You can find out more about it here.