THE COZIEST PLACE ON THE MOON

An exploration of tranquility and solitude, glimpsed from a snug nook in the moon.

Re, a blue, hedgehoglike critter, wakes on a July morning, feeling lonely. The only solution? To go to the coziest place on the moon, of course! At precisely 7:26 (“a pretty number, a pretty hour”), Re hops a beam of light and in a mere 1.255 seconds is there. Immediately Re begins searching for the perfect spot, but what’s this? Someone’s already there, and for the same reasons as Re. Now the two can live in parallel tunnels, coming together once in a while but only when they like. Popova takes exquisite care to clarify to young readers that being by oneself can be a positive, even healing, act (“that feeling which feels like hearing your own voice singing back to yourself”). Evocative language punctuates the book in unexpected ways—the author notes that the coziest place on the moon is “a tube of a nook, as deep as a skyscraper is tall.” Backmatter explains that in 2022 NASA found tubes on the moon where the temperatures are around 63 degrees Fahrenheit. Jacoby's dreamlike art gives all characters an inner glow of their own, staving off the impenetrability of space in favor of light, warmth, and fuzz.

A loving acknowledgment of the joys of being “happy-alone,” told with care and delicious language.