Moon Wishes: Rabbit Moon by Jean Kim

A secret dream takes midnight flight.

"What is it we wish tonight?"

Down on earth, beside a lighted window, a little raccoon pens a letter with a special wish. The letter is folded into a paper airplane, a missive with a mission, to deliver to the moon. Around him other small animals are also sending their wishes as well.

But in Jean Kim's Rabbit Moon (Arthur Levine/Scholastic Books, 2018), unlike our man in the moon, there is a Korean moon with a rabbit instead instead of a man on the moon, and this rabbit holds a magical mortar and pestle with which he grinds the wishes into the stars which float freely into their place in the firmament.

But the rabbit in the moon has a wish, too. He wishes to join the young animals down on the earth, so he chooses a large star and uses it as a magical parachute with which he floats gently down to join them, where he gets a warm welcome and joins them in their daytime fun. But alas, when the time of the dark of the moon is near, the Moon Rabbit has to take action!

But look! The stars!
Where have they gone?
Rabbit knows what must be done.
Farewell, friends...
It's time to go home.

But Rabbit knows what his new friends would wish and leaves behind something new--a telescope, so that his friends can keep in touch.

Jean Kim's lovely pictures are filled with gentle animals and swirling stardust which glows magically in the deep blue sky. This is a fanciful bedtime story with its own fantasy rooted in Korean folklore, an intriguing alternate take on a magical moon, done up in simple, soothing language and lovely luminous and radiant illustrations. "Kim's scenes are drawn in pencil and then digitally colored, and they have a softness around the edges, establishing a cozy mood that is sustained by the gentle rhymes," says Kirkus Reviews.