Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
Title: Moonhorse
Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Illustrator: S.M. Sealig
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
I saw this and couldn’t pass it up. Mary Pope Osborne invades my house again! I love her.
I enjoy her complete ability to offer facts and history and in this case astronomy in the form of fiction. To pique a child’s interest in a nonfiction topic with a bit of fantastical fairy tale.
I’m trying to get more detailed and specific when I offer these reviews of my child’s favorite books, but she doesn’t always seem to understand the questions. Or perhaps, I don’t understand the beautiful simplicity of her answers.
Me: “Did you like this book?”
Kiddo: “Yes!”
Me: “What did you like about it?”
Kiddo: “The white!”
Me: “Because the horse is white?”
Kiddo: “With the red.”
The little girl in the illustration is wearing a red dress. I think bits of the story were lost on my three year old today, she was drawing her own pictures and sucking down a cup of milk. I think ultimately, what she may have been trying to tell me, in her distracted three year old way, is that she liked the illustrations and the use of muted color. But I don’t want to put words in her mouth.
If you’re building an astronomy unit study for anyone under ten, this is a nice bedtime story to add to your week. Personally, I wish the poetry of the tale was rhymed more, but I have a natural inclination to the sing-songy way of things.