Finding Your Better Half: My Little Half Moon by Douglas Todd Jennerich

It's like the Teddy bear who is missing one eye. Or like your favorite puzzle with a missing piece. It's like a double-dip ice cream cone after the first scoop falls off. Incomplete and somehow sad.

ONE NIGHT I LOOKED UP AT HALF OF THE MOON.

The boy must have seen a full moon sometime--because half a moon just doesn't seem right.

NO ONE TO GLOW WITH AND EVERYONE KNOWING,
HOW SAD IS THE FACE THAT THE HALF-A-MOON'S SHOWING.

The boy worries that the little half-moon is lonely. He heads outside to see if the other half of the moon has shown up, but he sees nothing different. He camps out with a cup of cocoa and some toys, to keep the little moon company. It's lonely for him and he sees nothing new up there. He almost gives up.

And then one night when he goes out, he sees--not the little half-moon, but a full round moon. Ah! Now the moon looks just right, and tonight he can rest.

A HALF MOON IS NICE, BUT A FULL MOON IS BEST.

Douglas Todd Jennerich's My Little Half-Moon (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2017) is a sweet story, told in rhythmic, rhyming couplets, and illustrated piquantly by Kate Berube, in blackline drawings with soft water-colored nighttime hues. In a parallel story told only in the pictures, a girl in blue keeps watch on the moon from the forest, and under the bright sky the two become friends who rendezvous and swing way up high, almost to the moon. This little book is a light, first look at the lunar cycle (well, half of it at least).

Doing the Dark! Max at Night by Ed Vere

THIS IS MAX.

IT'S WAY PAST BEDTIME.

Day is done, and Max the little black kitten is going through his necessary nighttime ritual. He says goodnight to his fish, and to the spider, and to his favorite box, and then he comes to his final goodnight.

"GOODNIGHT, MOON," MAX SAYS.

BUT THE MOON IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN.

Max is sleepy, but he is also brave and determined. He goes outside, under the dark blue, starlit sky and calls to the moon.

Still Moon is nowhere in sight. How can Max say goodnight?

Max thinks about that.

"MAYBE I'LL SEE MOON IF I GET A LITTLE HIGHER," THINKS MAX.

Max hops up on the snoozing dog's back. No Moon. He climbs a tall tree, and from there clambers up on the rooftops, but he still sees no sign of his Moon. He goes up to the roof of the tallest building he can see, but he sees no Moon from there. Weary, Max scales the highest hill. A chill wind whips around him. The sky is cloudy and dark. Max can't see the stars anymore. Where is Moon?

"MOOOOON!"

And then the wind parts the clouds, and there is MOON! Max at last gets to tell him goodnight! Then Moon whispers a secret.

"DID YOU KNOW THAT I CAN HEAR YOU SAY GOODNIGHT FROM HOME?"

"NOW YOU TELL ME!" SAYS MAX.

In the companion book to his 2015 hit, Max the Brave, Ed Vere's Max at Night (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2016) takes the sometimes intrepid Max into a new nighttime adventure. A tiny, big-eyed black kitten, Max is an unlikely hero, but he bravely does battle with the dark and finally finds the light, a benevolent Moon who whispers the comforting message that he is always there, even when he's not in sight, the very message that parents also seek to impart at bedtime.

Youngsters will enjoy knowing what Max finds out, that the moon is a constant of the night, and Ed Vere's illustrations make Max the center of each page as he moves left to right across the succeeding pages and the background shifts from the cozy pastels of Max's room to an ever-darkening and ascending landscape, one that parallels his theme. This story happily ends, as all good bedtime stories should, with little Max fast asleep. "Cozy, dozy, comforting fare," says Kirkus.