Max loves his Grandpa. When they must say good-bye after a visit, Grandpa promises Max that the moon at Grandpa’s house is the same moon that will follow him all the way home. On that swervy-curvy car ride back to his house, Max watches as the moon tags along. But when the sky darkens and the moon disappears behind clouds, he worries that it didn’t follow him home after all. Where did the moon go—and what about Grandpa’s promise?
I really love this month’s space theme because it is so open-ended, and allows for such a wide array of interpretations. Max and the Tag-Along Moon isn’t about rocketing off into outer space, but a celestial body does feature heavily in this gentle, comforting story, and that’s a tenuous-enough link for me.
There are a number of reasons why I love this beautiful book. I love its celebration of intergenerational love. The main characters are the little boy Max and his devoted Grandpa, who promises Max that the moon will follow him all the way home, just as his Grandpa’s love will follow him wherever he goes. It’s sweet without being saccharine, gentle without being syrupy. The loving bond between these two characters feels real, and is expressed as much through the illustrations as through the text.
Then there’s Coretta Scott King Award winner Floyd Cooper‘s evocative illustrations. Each painting has a softly-focused, moonlit dreaminess to it, a soothing gentleness that mirrors the simple text.
Max and the Tag-Along Moon is a perfect bedtime story – there’s very little in the way of action or even plot, which can be exactly what you want when trying to calm and soothe a sleepy youngster. Just a heartwarming story of a little boy, his Grandpa, and the moon, which serves as a constant reminder of the love between them.Beautiful, beautiful stuff.
The Book Wars 