Moonstruck! Poems about our Moon
ISBN13
9781910959787
Review published
02/07/2019
By Reviewer
Alison
Star Rating
By Author / Illustrator
Ed Roger Stevens, illus Ed Boxall
Age range(s)
7+
Review
Just a month after the publication of Brian Moses' and James Carter's Spaced Out, comes another celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing in the form of Moonstruck! Poet Roger Stevens and illustrator Ed Boxall have produced this anthology of poems 'about our moon'. Is there space for both books on your shelves? There definitely should be. With its arresting covers - a full moon in an azure sky rests above children perched on a tree's branches - and artfully designed pages, Moonstruck! is a book that children will be delighted by. Poems that celebrate the landing itself come from Eric Ode's 'When I was three' (p.8): a three year-old's memory of his mother sitting him down to watch the moon landing. It has a simple charm: 'I wanted to return / to the world of my backyard - / to my sandbox / and my swing set. / "Not yet," she said. / "Watch." / And I did. / "Remember," she said. / And I do. //. This child's lens is counterpointed by Roger Stevens' - 'The Eagle has Landed' (p.10) - who writes from Neil Armstrong's perspective: 'We climbed atop the giant Saturn V, / began the checks, / I smiled at Michael and at Buzz, / they smiled at me./. Later in the book, we learn about 'Poor old Phoebe' (p. 45), an ancient Roman goddess of the moon who, having survived the indignity of those 'who said she was made of cheese' has maintained her romance 'despite being trodden upon'. Roger Stevens' title poem (p.60) plays with the compound quality of 'moonstruck', offering definitions of other 'moon-' words. So 'Moonstruck / A brilliant idea that arrives after midnight' whilst 'Moonsack' is 'A bag made of memories for storing your dreams'. This forms part of a double page spread set against Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Moon'. Ed Boxall's moonlit landscape unites the two. This is one of the many double-page woodcuts that surround the words in this volume. For Rachel Rooney's 'Moontime' (p.64), Boxall depicts figures making their way home in the light of 'Cold Moon', one of the many moons featured in Rooney's poem. Children will be fascinated by these different moons: Old, Snow, Sap, Egg... I had no idea! There are so many different opportunities for children here. With Poetry Zone's focus on children's own writing, it's not surprising to find contributions from children themselves such as twelve-year-old's Harshita Das (p. 29) 'The Delicious Side of the Moon' and Sam Decie's (age 9) imaginative 'Eight ways to get to the moon' (p. 30). There are many poems that lend themselves well as models for the children's independent writing. Julia Rawlinson's 'Good Moon, Bad Moon' (p.58) and Grace Nicholls' 'Look at the Moon' (p.28) offer open repetitive structures. There are cross curricular opportunities here too: Philip Waddell's 'The cruel truth' (p. 43) requires (or will trigger) some scientific understanding about the relationship between the sun and moon: 'The cruel truth is, Moon / that compared with a start / you don't have the pulling power.//' The moon has always inspired beautiful figurative language and this book just drips with it! We have Grace Nicholls' metaphor of 'A crescent sky-ship sailing / out of a cloudy cocoon/'; Valerie Bloom (p.19) gives us the moon as a starfish; Sue Hardy-Dawson's exquisitely pretty 'In the arms of the moon' (p.63) personifies the passage of the moon through a day Dawn sits in the arms of the moon / Weaving songs of spider silk /. The book's finale comes in the form of David Harmer's 'A good night Moon' (p. 94): 'A thin silver needle / stitches the moon to the sky / like a pearl button /'. It's complemented by Boxall's final gentle illustration of a child asleep in the moon. 96 pages / Ages 8-11 years / Reviewed by Alison Kelly, consultant
