Shine Moon Shine

Ata, a small boy, is determined to help lonely moon back into its rightful place in the sky instead of languishing atop a skyscraper. Captured sunbeams, torches and holes made in the dark to let the daylight in, prove inadequate to solve the problem and it’s Ata’s own tears of sadness, frozen and scattered in the firmament, that finally light the way for the moon’s ascent and supply a cure for his loneliness.

There is a wealth of answers from folklore explaining how the sun, moon and stars got into the sky. This story however is contemporary with the author, somewhat anachronistically, imagining a present-day world without stars. There is something about the veracity of the author’s constructs that troubles me here: a modern-day world with a moon and sun but no stars?

The misty oil pastel illustrations are suffused with light providing a colourful backdrop rather than adding anything extra to the feeling-centred story about a small boy’s kindness and determination.