Under the Moon - Hardcover

Like Sheldon and Blythe's previous collaboration, The Whales' Song , winner of the 1991 Kate Greenaway medal, this exquisite picture book is imbued with the magic of nature and dreams. When Jenny finds an arrowhead in her backyard, her mother tells her about a time when "there were no roads, no cars, no cities, and no towns. Just the people, the animals, and the land itself." That night, Jenny dreams she is invited to join a campfire gathering of Native Americans, who describe "how the world had been, so long ago, when the land was as large and as open as the sky." Together, the sonorous text and remarkable oil paintings suggest the triumph of the imagination over time. The book is not a nostalgic lament for the past; rather, it offers a glimpse of the paradoxical reality and beauty of both past and present--the sunlight on Jenny's hair and the tangle of flowers in her backyard are just as breathtaking as vistas of starlit tepees. One memorable illustration, like a doubly exposed photograph, depicts a suburban street as the burnished face of a Native American appears through the shimmering clouds and houses, as if present and past were one. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grade 1-5-When Jenny finds a flint arrowhead in her garden, her mother evokes for her a time before roads, cars, cities, and trees, a time "when the land was as large and as open as the sky." Jenny tries to imagine it, but the sights and sounds around her interfere. That night, however, she sleeps in a tent in the yard and dreams of the people who made her arrowhead. She sees their circle of tepees and them sitting around a fire, and joins their world for the night. When she wakes up in the morning she reburies the flint, seeing for one last moment that lost, long-ago world. Blythe's light-dappled paintings imbue scenes of both the past and present with beauty and mystery. Selected items are depicted with precise detail and clarity (Jenny's face, the flint, a warrior's spear), while others are stippled masses of rich color. This juxtaposition contributes to the dreamlike atmosphere of the whole book. Sheldon and Blythe have pulled off an impressive feat-a conjunction of text and pictures as lovely and lyrical as their earlier collaboration, The Whales' Song (Dial, 1991).
Patricia Dooley, formerly at University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.