And If the Moon Could Talk by Kate
Banks
My Favorite Children's Book!
And if the moon could talk, / it would tell of evening / stealing through the
woods / and a lizard scurrying home to supper. Kate Banks and illustrator
Georg Hallenslebens lovely bedtime book spins a sleepy tale of what the
moon would say if it could look down at a night-swept Earth and tell us
what it sees. The book begins with a cozy inside view of a little pajama-
clad girl and her stuffed white rabbit. Then we travel outside to a moons
view of the night world. Back inside, from the familiar objects on the
bedside table--a glass, a wooden boat, a starfish, too--we move to waves
washing onto the beach, / shells, and a crab resting. Each rich, color-
drenched scene complements the next--as Mama hands her child the toy
rabbit, a lioness licks her cubs in a faraway den. And if the moon could
talk, the book concludes, it would tell of a child / curled up in bed wrapped
in sleep. / And it would murmur / Good night. From the creators of the
beloved Baboon and Spider, Spider, this beautiful book--winner of the
1998 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for best picture book--has become

one of our all-time favorite bedtime stories. (Click to see a sample spread.
Illustrations copyright © 1998 by Georg Hallensleben, text © 1998 by
Kate Banks. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Farrar, Straus and
Giroux.) (Ages 3 and older) --Karin Snelson
Personal Review: And If the Moon Could Talk by Kate Banks
This is the perfect book for bed time reading. My two-year-old twins love its
dreamy, sing-song short stanzas. The lyrical quality of the text is perfectly
complemented by the pastel illustrations.
The narrative gently intercuts between a child's perspective on winding
down for night time and depictions of the moon illuminating natural or
domestic settings all around the world at dusk. Each couplet is linked by
visual cues - little readers will enjoy connecting models and toys in the
familiar child's environment with their counterparts in the real world (toy
tractor to farmer bringing in the cows at dusk; toy boat to ship sailing under
the moonlight).
At its conclusion the book brings together both halves of the narrative as
the moon whispers "good night" to the child tucked up in bed. It helps
reassure your little ones that going to sleep makes them part of something
every animal and all people over the whole world are doing - the ideal note
on which to end before switching off the light!
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