Moonflute
Grade 1- 3 In this long bedtime mood-piece, a little girl, Firen, accuses the moon of taking her sleep; she resolves to ``go out in the night and find it.'' Outside, a moonbeam lands in her hands and becomes a magic flute with which she flies through the night. She encounters creatures of town, sea, and jungle in a dreamlike sequence illustrated in deep greens, blues, and violet. Firen herself has a pixie-ish, flower-fairy look, and is silvery-shiny with moonlight. The earthy robust humor of King Bidgood's in the Bathtub (HBJ, 1985) gives way in this book to an airy romanticism in both text and illustrations. Adult nostalgia for the magic of warm moonlit nights is evoked more strongly than the actual experience of them, giving this more adult than child appeal. Udry's Moon Jumpers (Harper, 1959) with Sendak's exhilarating double-page spreads is still the best choice for capturing a childlike vision of nighttime enchantment. Susan Patron, Los Angeles Public LibraryCopyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.