I'll Catch the Moon

From Publishers Weekly A girl's fantasy of having a play date with the moon remains oddly earthbound in Crews's (One Hot Summer Day) latest photo-collage book. The author/artist melds oft-heard musings about the moon into an uninspired text, as her protagonist recalls the man in the moon, a man on the moon "and a cow jumping over it" and acts out her dream of climbing a ladder into outer space to get a closer look. Crews's collages, so vibrant in her previous book, appear hokey and staged here, and she combines photos without the sensitivity to scale shown in the similarly conceived The Ring (reviewed above). Photographs of the child are often fuzzy, and the girl's large full-color presence often clashes?rather than contrasts?with the sharp, monochromatic blue-black nighttime backgrounds. Ages 4-up. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal PreSchool-K?Using photographs of the moon and of a city's buildings imposed against the dark-blue night sky, Crews creates a mood piece in which a child fantasizes about climbing to the moon and circling the Earth. The photographic collages are stunning and the youngster is charming. She compares the celestial object to the shiny quarter she holds in her hands; remembers the cow that jumped over the moon; fancies the sky filled with helicopters, astronauts, clouds, and comets; and imagines herself climbing a great wooden ladder into the realm of night and space before returning to home and family. The book has striking visual images and, while there is no strong story line, it does capture and convey a child's power to imagine and wonder. Read aloud by adults, it may encourage discussion of children's ideas about the world and their part in it.?Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.