By the Light of the Moon Offers Comfort for Those Night-time Jitters
By the Light of the Moon By Leon Goss III
A few weeks ago, my husband and I took our 9-year-old son to see a friend in a high school musical. Our son frequently accompanies me to shows so I didn't think for too long about how appropriate the show was or wasn't. Indeed, this is the son who performed this past summer in a professional production of Macbeth and thought the blood bags and murder scenes (of which he was one of the victims) were pretty cool.
So I certainly didn't expect that Little Shop of Horrors would frighten the lad as deeply as it did. Even after taking him up to the stage to see the puppet, he was still frightened of it and has had difficulty going to sleep with the lights off ever since.
So I guess you never quite know what will pluck on the strings of a child's fears. It's why it's nice to have books like Leon Goss III's By the Light of the Moon. Going by the dedication of the author and the illustrator, both are fathers to boys who have fought their own after-dark demons. It's also obvious they poured a lot of love into a book meant to comfort without belittling or dismissing the terrors of the night.
In this book, a young nameless boy awakes from a sound sleep to the sound of a horrible noise. He alternately searches for the noise and then hides beneath the bed. Eventually, he works up the courage to run from his room to the shelter of his father's sleeping arms, even though that means moving closer to the horrible noise.
The ending twists delightfully, leaving both the boy in the story and the reader with a smile teasing the lips.
Children will often demand parents to read a picture book to them multiple times. This book has the lyrical quality that makes a story attractive to both child and adult. It's a highly readable story with a delightful melody.
Another element of this book that I appreciate is the sensitivity displayed in leaving in unknown whether there is a mother present or whether the father is a single dad. It's never said one way or another and the bedroom shot is cropped in such a way that the mother might be there, but she might not. It's a touch that expands the appeal and makes the book of more immediate relativity to both children with two parents and those who live only with a father.
By the Light of the Moon is a book in which thoughtful design underscores the content. The colors are all muted and filled with the shadows one finds in a home late at night. The text changes color, size, and font in ways that make the story's tone jump off the page and into the voice of the person reading the book aloud. It's a design that hints of early Dr. Seuss books where the type matches the sound of the words.
In all, Leon Goss III's By the Light of the Moon is a charming and sweet book lovingly illustrated by Shinyin-Sean Luo. My son claimed to be too old for this book, but he grudgingly acknowledged that it would be a good book for "little kids."
