The limited color palette worked well with the sparse narration, but could never leave the illustration described as simplistic. I was reminded of comics/graphic novels in the panel approach to showing the growth and diminishment of the moon. Charlotte's Web by EB White illustrated by Garth W.Illustrations: I found this book visually striking.Susie and Alfred in the Night of the Paper Bag Mon.Little Big Feet by Ingrid and Deiter Schubert.

Every single one is a winner! I have already talked about this author but I wanted to especially mention Happy Birthday Moon.

If you do not know about the talented Frank Aschand you are looking for books to read to your youngest child you must run into your nearest library and seek them out. “ For a long time the moon would not speak to him so Bear spoke first.” These lines always make me smile. At this exact moment the lovely hat blows away. He naturally assumes the moon has bought him a hat too.

During the night the hat blows and lands on Bears doorstep. The moon appears to climb the tree and he tries on the hat which fits perfectly. Bear buys a lovely hat for the moon and places it in a tree. One of the funniest moments, where we see Bear still has no idea this is an echo, comes right near the end. The delight is that every young reader immediately recognizes what is going on here. “ Tell me,’ asked Bear, ‘When is your birthday?’ ‘Tell me when is your birthday?’ replied the moon.”Ĭan you guess what is going on here? It is an echo but bear does not realize this of course. He makes this choice after climbing to the top of a very high mountain to have a little chat with the moon. In Happy Birthday Moon these boxes show the moon moving or perhaps the Earth is moving or both.īear decides the moon would like a hat. If you look carefully inside Moon Game, Moon Cake, Skyfire and Bear Shadow you will see four boxes on the first page. “ But bear didn’t know when the moon’s birthday was, or what to get him.” Frank Asch always includes a little hint (often with a science base) at the beginning of each of his books about Moonbear.

Little Bear looks up at the Moon and wonders about his Birthday. Of course this is just a game but Happy Birthday Moon is an absolute favorite of mine. I sometimes tell my youngest students if someone gave me just ten minutes to grab my favorite books this is a book would be at the top of my pile.

Moon bear by frank asch