Re-Hanging the Moon: Sidney and Stella and the Moon by Emma Yarlett

SIDNEY AND STELLA DID EVERYTHING TOGETHER.

BUT THERE WAS ONE THING THAT SIDNEY AND STELLA DID NOT DO TOGETHER.

SIDNEY AND STELLA DID NOT SHARE.

It's a common problem between brothers and sisters, and when someone won't share a toy or the TV, it's usually not a national emergency.

But this time--it  might be.

Sidney has taken possession of a ball that Stella fancies, and as he darts off, the ball slips from his fingers and bounces toward an open window.

In fact, it somehow bounces right out the window and drops toward the earth. Sidney and Stella peer out at it as it hits the ground, and with their mouths open in astonishment, they see it hit the sidewalk outside and take a bounce--a BIG bounce!

HIGH! HIGH! HIGH!

UNTIL IT WAS SO HIGH IT COULD TOUCH THE MOON.  SMASH!

It did more than touch the moon!  It broke it in pieces which fell toward the earth. Oops!

Sidney and Stella run downstairs and look out their door, which opens into a double gatefold of the out-of-doors scene.  The sky is empty of everyone's favorite satellite, and all the neighbors are looking up, trying to figure out where it went. Even some astronauts are wandering around, looking for the moon.

Sidney and Stella feel guilty. They must be in BIG TROUBLE, right? There's only one thing to do to mend the moonless situation: come up with a NEW MOON--fast!

Emma Yarlett manages to stay just a bit over the line between believable and far-fetched in her missing moon fantasy in her Sidney, Stella, and the Moon (Templar, 2013), primarily through her dreamlike illustrations done up in midnight shades of blue.  Her fanciful solution of a glowing wheel of cheese found in the fridge may be a bit hard to, um, swallow, but preschoolers are often fairy tale fans and will chuckle at how the two now co-operating siblings work well together to accomplish their mission to re-launch their somewhat cheesy satellite into its proper orbit.

Read this one along with with Eric Carle's similarly themed and popular Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me (The World of Eric Carle) for a pair of dark-of-the-moon, pie-in-the sky lunar tales (see review here).