The Moon is a Silver Pond

by Sara Cassidy, Josee Bisaillon (Illustrator)

Overview

A young child skates, bakes and milks the cow while the moon wondrously transforms above. The moon is a silver pond when seen through the trees. When they tend the cow, the moon is the milk at the bottom of the pail.

With stunning illustrations by Josée Bisaillon, this simple board book shows children that the way they see the world—by heart, mind and imagination—is just right. Reveling in metaphor, The Moon Is a Silver Pond encourages that magical leap of imagination and asks the reader to look at everyday objects from a different perspective.

Watch for the follow-up, The Sun Is a Peach, in spring 2020.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459818644
Publisher:	Orca Book Publishers
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Pages:	24
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 2 Years

About the Author

Sara Cassidy has worked as a youth-hostel manager, a newspaper reporter and a tree planter, in five Canadian provinces. Her books have been short-listed for the Chocolate Lily Award, the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award, the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature and the Bolen Books Children’s Book Prize, and two were Junior Library Guild selections. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction for adults have been widely published. For more information, visit saracassidywriter.com.

Josée Bisaillon has illustrated more than twenty-five children’s books, created numerous editorial illustrations for magazines and newspapers. She has been short-listed twice for the Governor General's Literary Award, and she won the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award for The Snow Knows. She lives outside Montreal with her family.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/12/2019

On a snowy evening, a child’s imagination transforms everyday objects into lunar comparisons. Lightly reminiscent of Ruth Krauss and Remy Charlip’s A Moon or a Button, Cassidy’s gentle phrasing swings between clear metaphors (“The moon is a silver pond./ A pail of milk... A shining hubcap”) and those that require more imagination (“A sleeping snail... a tooth, a pillow”). Bisaillon’s cozy mixed-media illustrations, meanwhile, zoom in on delicate details: the head of a nail with dents like the moon’s craters, the steam rising off a warm apple pie, and a delicate thread winding through a pearlescent button. The slow recitation of moonlike items builds into a lovely bedtime transition, gradually moving from the wintry outdoors into a warm, snuggly bed, bathed in moonlight: “a tunnel through the dark night.” A volume sure to jump-start readers’ imaginations and create moon-y, luminous dreams. Ages up to 2. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Beautiful...The poetic language and cool colours are calming…A classic bedtime read.

Resource Links

Simple and elegant...Highly recommended for all board book collections.

CM: Canadian Review of Materials

09/20/2019

Toddler-PreS-This exquisitely illustrated board book offers many everyday images that look like the moon. They vary in size, like the titular silver pond, a lost button, to the head of a nail. A child living in a farmhouse is the one who primarily interacts with these items, but since viewers never really see their face, they act as a stand-in for all children reading the book. The book introduces readers to the concept of metaphor, as items don't need to look exactly like the moon to represent the celestial body. While the book is meant for younger kids, older ones could also enjoy reading it with parents and identifying everyday objects that remind them of other things. The book incites further conversation by asking, "What is the moon to you?" Bisaillon's illustrations play with perspective and mixed media for an end result that is both calming and stunning. Cassidy's words have a subtle lyricism, which draws from her poetry background. VERDICT Board books don't often get this level of artistic care. Highly recommended for board book collections.-Gretchen Hardin, Bee Cave Public Library, TX

School Library Journal

2019-12-08
This richly illustrated board book uses the moon to explore metaphor.

Bisaillon's art takes center stage as readers follow along looking for the moon in different objects, beginning with the titular statement. Some are fairly obvious (a pail of milk, a shiny hubcap), while others are more obscure (a tooth, a pillow). These metaphors rely heavily on Bisaillon's artwork to communicate meaning to readers. This works out in the case of "the head of the nail," its shiny, pocked, gray surface clearly a miniature moon. For others, such as the "apple pie," it's harder to find the moon's likeness in the object depicted. Because the concept of a metaphor is a big one for board-book readers, when it's difficult to see an object's resemblance to the moon, the idea may be lost. Bisaillon's illustrations—in cut paper, pastels, watercolors, pencils, and digital collage—are truly stunning. In addition to the show-stopping opening and closing wintry forest scenes, a real standout shows a bird's-eye view of the moon's glow cast through a window across the child's bedroom. Humans are not represented with gender stereotypes (heads and facial features are largely excluded), but all visible skin reads as white. Overall, a largely successful effort to convey metaphors to young readers. Even though they don't all quite work out, the beautiful illustrations mostly make up for it.

Read this one for the lovely lunar illustrations. (Board book. 1-3)

Kirkus Reviews

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