Celebrating the Moon and changing seasons with Colleen Larmour's Follow Me Moon
About Author
Follow a year of full moons through the eyes of a growing young boy in author and illustrator's Colleen Larmour's Follow Me Moon (Nosy Crow).
Colleen Larmour is a picture book maker from Northern Ireland, where she lives with her husband and two daughters at the top of a tall hill with wonderful views of the night sky and moon. You can find her on Instagram @colleenlarmour
Interview
November 2026
Celebrating the moon and seasons with Colleen Larmour's picture book, Follow Me Moon
The moon is a comforting presence for young children and in author and illustrator's Colleen Larmour's Follow Me Moon (Nosy Crow), we follow a year of full moons through the eyes of a growing young boy. Celebrated as a constant presence in the boy's life, the full moon helps him mark each change in season and festivities through the year.
ReadingZone caught up with Colleen to find out more about creating Follow Me Moon, and some suggested activities to follow a reading with young children.
More about Follow Me Moon: "A sweet rhyming story, the perfect bedtime book." Reviewed by Joanne
Creative Writing Challenge: After a reading of Follow Me Moon, ask children to think about a time they last gazed at the moon and thought 'wowww!'. Using rhyme, can they describe what the moon was like in 2-4 sentences. If they wish, they can draw a picture of that moon as they remember it and where they were i.e. From their bedroom window, travelling in the car or in the park after dark.
Q&A with Colleen Larmour: Reflecting on how children see the moon in Follow Me Moon
"I wanted to capture that sense of the moon being a familiar companion throughout a child's life and all their favourite times of the year.
And I wanted to write and illustrate it in a way that felt comforting and soothing, just as the moon's presence is."
1. Colleen, thank you for joining ReadingZone to talk about your new picture book, Follow Me Moon. Can you tell us a little about yourself and what brought you into creating picture books?
At 17 years old I enrolled at my local art college in Belfast, then moved to Liverpool to study Multimedia Arts at the John Moores Art College. The course was a mix of animation, graphic design and photography. But no drawing! For this degree course I made lots of children's design projects like interactive pre-school games and puzzles.
After I graduated I knew that I wanted to continue creating work for children but I also knew that I wanted to get back to more traditional drawing. This led me to study the masters course in children's book illustration at Cambridge Art School. It was an amazing two years of study that got me back to sketching from life and creating stories and narrative art. I loved it and knew I'd found what I wanted to do.
I was very lucky to get a book deal at the end of the course in 2008 with Little Tiger Press, who published my first two picture books. I think finding out a publisher would like to publish one of my stories is always a favourite career moment! Nothing tops the excitement of beginning work on a brand new book.
2. What kinds of picture books do you enjoy creating? Where do you take your inspiration from for your stories?
I've made lots of different types of pictures books over the years. Some non-fiction about animals and nature and stories of childhood experiences like starting school or getting a new baby brother.
Having worked across lots of different styles of story writing has helped me understand what I enjoy the most, which is creating stories and pictures about real, lived childhood experiences. I get a lot of ideas from my own children and our daily lives together. They are my biggest source of inspiration.
3. What inspired your picture book celebrating the moon, 'Follow Me Moon', and what happens in this story? Why do you feel that children are fascinated by the moon?
I am a moon gazer and when my eldest daughter was very young she was also captivated by the moon. I can remember one night we had been outside and the moon was big and beautiful. When we came back inside she became very upset that the moon was being left outside alone and she cried for it at the window. She saw it as a thing with feelings that she was concerned for. Then when we were out in the car one evening and both my children kept shouting "the moon is following us!" the idea for Follow Me Moon came to me.
I can remember as a child feeling that the moon followed me, so I knew it must be a universal feeling shared by everyone. With my story I wanted to capture that sense of the moon being a familiar companion throughout a child's life and all their favourite times of the year. And I wanted to write and illustrate it in a way that felt comforting and soothing, just as the moon's presence is.
4. The boy in the story is the narrator, how did you capture his voice, and did it feel natural to write his story in verse?
From the very beginning I knew that the story should be in verse with the word moon repeatedly rhymed with other words. This was the right way to give the story a soothing lullaby feel as a bedtime book. The very first page begins "My room. My moon." Only four words but an important first line of text to quickly establish that the boy is gazing at the moon with friendly affection.
From that point it was a fun exploration of making the rhymes working with each season and also do the job of journeying the narrative along to a natural conclusion.
5. Why do you focus on the full moon, and link it to different seasons and celebrations across a year? How would you engage young children with this in a reading?
I did experiment with using the different shapes of the moon throughout the book but the full moons made sense as the best way to keep the moon feeling like a consistent and familiar character. Using the seasons and holidays to show the passage of time was a wonderful way to show the child's long term connection with the moon and keep it all rooted in nature.
When reading the book with children, it is fun to talk about moon phases and how we have only 12 fulls moons a year. These moons have beautiful old names that are representative of the seasons and what's happening in nature.
6. We love the retro style of the illustrations, what inspired this and why did you decide to take this approach with the story?
I knew this book would be better suited for younger readers with its limited text and so I wanted to pair that with simple and more graphic artwork. Both appeal to that younger audience and the simple story and art compliment each other well. I love mid-century children's books and art and over time that has come to influence my own approach to drawing and design. I like to think it feels retro with a modern twist for today's little readers.
7. Did this guide your use of colour through the story? How did you create the print-style illustrations?
From the beginning I was working with the palette of deep blue with yellow and red highlights to help capture that nighttime magical feeling. There were a few more colours and details at the start but as the story and artwork were refined the palette and art became more pared back and sophisticated.
The watercolour blue washes are layered digitally with block colours of yellow and red to create the screen printed effect. I like this combination of watercolour and flat colour as the art still has that textured, handmade quality that gives it movement and life.
8. Do you have any suggestions for activities to follow-up a reading of Follow Me Moon?
In my own school events I have made starry moon pictures with the children, which work well! They dab grey paint onto a white paper plate to make the moon's craters and face. Then they stick their moons onto a sheet of black card, which they fill with gold and silver stars.
Another fun activity is to look at the different moons for each month of the year, learn their names and what they mean. Or learn the different phases of the moon and why it changes shape.
9. Are you currently working on new picture books? For children who enjoy Follow Me Moon, do you have other picture books they might enjoy?
I am working on new stories! Stories that use the same simple text and art style as Follow Me Moon and are about childhood experiences. I loved making the book so much and now really want to make more books in a similar way!
I have made several other picture books but one that is beautifully linked to nature and the seasons is a non-fiction picture book called Brown Bears. It's all about a mother bear teaching her cubs how to survive in the Alaskan wilderness and it's a lovely book to read in the autumn as bears get ready for hibernation.
10. What kinds of activities do you enjoy when you're not creating picture books?
I love reading, baking, running and getting outdoors for long walks. My family and I like to find new places to hike at the weekend and love to take a picnic and a flask of tea with us. We always finish an extra long hike with some fish and chips for dinner!
School Visits by Colleen Larmour: During my school visits, I like to talk about my experience of being an author and illustrator and share some of my favourite books and the process of making them. I always read one or two with the class and then I'll do a drawing or craft activity that the children get involved with. They always enjoy this part and I love to see the children's artwork. Schools can contact me via my email address if they'd like to arrange a visit [email protected]
Follow Me Moon
Brown Bears
