Mind Games

A story lost, and then found: The Moon Shines Down was written years ago by Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon, Runaway Bunny) and tucked away with numerous other manuscripts; it was discovered recently and has just been published fifty-six years after the death of the author.  The manuscript as Brown left it was too short (by today’s standards) for a full-size picture book, and so publisher Laura Minchew added verses to match the rhythms and rhyme schemes.  It was illustrated in an open, playful style by Linda Bleck.

The book is based on the common prayer “I see the Moon and the Moon sees me, God bless the Moon and God bless me.”  Each set of pages begins with a smiling koala (and the enormous full moon) traveling to a different part of the world.  The reader is taken to Holland, Switzerland, “the Far, Far East,” Mexico, France, Australia, England, Africa, Christmas Eve in an unnamed neighborhood (which looks like New England) and “the Ocean Deep.”  These pages include fanciful illustrations that had my six-year-old pointing out interesting details.

For example, he loved that the Koala is painting a picture of the Eiffel Tower while sitting in front of the real tower on the page for France.  He enjoyed looking at the page for “the Far, Far East” and asking which children spoke which languages (the text mentions Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Mandarin (which is a Chinese language), Laotian and Vietnamese).  He’s somehow sure that I will be able to look at the hand-drawn Asian children and be able to tell which countries they’re from!

This does get to the heart of my concern with this book, which is that overall it’s very white- or Euro-centric.  All the countries of Africa are included in one spread (only Zimbabwe is mentioned by name) but Holland, Switzerland, France and England each get their own spread to represent Europe.  Asia is similarly given a cursory glance.

I’m sure that most of the Euro-centricity has to do with the original author, and the fact that the original manuscript was written some 60 years ago, and I can accept that, just as I accept the world views of other older authors.  I mention it only because it seems stilted and confusing to my kids in today’s multicultural world.

The other small quibble I have with the book is the inclusion of Christmas Eve.  Yes, the book’s refrain includes “God bless the Moon and God bless me,” but on all the other pages, in all the other countries, this God could be any god, all gods, and accepting of all faiths.  Including the lines “the Moon sees the Christ Child, Heaven’s Baby” makes the book feel less tolerant.

But all of that is not to say that my kids didn’t enjoy The Moon Shines Down.  We were charmed by the perky Koala, the trip around the world, the soothing refrain and the idea that the Moon can be a reminder of the Holy.  The book has taken its place on our shelf of bedtime reads.

The Moon Shines Down was provided to me by Thomas Nelson for the purposes of this review.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 8:50 pm and is filed under books, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.