The Boy Who Loved the Moon

Italian filmmaker Alaimo offers a book adaptation of his 2012 short film, The Boy and the Moon. It’s a classic romance in which a knight pursues a lady—but the knight is a boy with an upturned nose, and the lady is the moon hanging in his window. Night-black spreads lit with warm, copper-tinged light show the boy diving into the sea for an exquisite pearl, then slaying a dragon for its diamond eye. But the moon rejects his gifts. At last he ties a rope around her to keep her in the sky as the sun rises, giving her, in a dazzling revelation of light, “the beauty of the colors of the day” and winning her love. Some readers may be puzzled by the boy’s devotion to the moon; it’s a crescent shape hanging in the sky with no visible reactions or expressions—a celestial object rather than a character. And while the book stops when the boy and the moon unite, the film continues on to a different conclusion. Still, it’s clear that Alaimo is a polished craftsman in both mediums. Ages 5–8. (May)