Rabbit Moon

Kim’s debut as both author and artist opens on a night lit by the full moon. In soft, powdery spreads and panels, she draws a peaceful town inhabited by childlike animals. Koreans don’t see a man in the moon, an opening author’s note explains, but a rabbit pounding rice into cakes, and it’s the custom to wish on it when it’s full: “What is it we wish tonight?/ Across the sky... A journey far.../ Till Rabbit turns them into stars.” A raccoon writes its wish on paper and folds it into an airplane. Other creatures do the same, and their wish-airplanes glow as they soar moonward, where they land in Rabbit’s mortar and he pounds them into stars that set his furry face aglow. Rabbit makes a wish, too: he dons a space helmet and heads to Earth, where he shares in the pleasures of the animals’ lives—cycling, going to the library, rowing—before returning to the moon. Kim’s dreamy words and pictures seem simple, but they’re subtly paced and polished; her world, with its friendly glow and reassuring companionship, is one children will want to return to. Ages 3–5. (Jan.)