MOONLIGHT

Full of mystery and intrigue, a personified beam of moonlight is on the move as a child sleeps, wakes, wonders, and is reassured.

Solitary text on a dark page suggests that something is out there—awake, alive, and moving. It’s in a lush jungle, where a hushed tone pervades and gazelles bound away. It is slithering, tumbling, hiding, seemingly ready to pounce. When dense landscapes open to the sea, the mood lightens from ominous to adventurous. Something catches a plane, then a train and rides through mountain passes. But the relief is short-lived as readers quickly realize the something is coming closer, into their neighborhoods and rooms. At the height of suspense, a child awakens in a room with a toy plane and a framed picture of a gazelle—hints that what readers just witnessed were parts of a dream. Not fearful, the child longs for the moonlight to return. Savage uses linocuts in a limited palette of various hues of blue to create deceivingly simple, atmospheric illustrations with sophisticated depth. Bathed in blue, the child's race is unclear. Repetitive patterning and striking compositions create loads of visual play, while the descriptive, minimal text—sometimes only a phrase per spread—sets the tone. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A stunning bedtime tale infused with a bit of suspense.