In this captivating bedtime story by an award-winning author/illustrator, playful otters cavort and rollick in the starlight until Mother Moon looks down and sees them--and her child, whom she has been seeking, safe and sound. Full color.

Synopsis: "Where is my moonlet? Where is my little one?"

Mother Moon is looking for her child. As she calls for him, her tears turn into stars that fall into the sea and are rescued, along with her little one, by a lot of otters. These playful animals cavort and rollick in the starlight until Mother Moon looks down and sees them — and her child, safe and sound.

Barbara Helen Berger's poetic words and glowing illustrations are beautifully fused in this dreamlike tale that is just perfect for bedtime.

Dimensions: 6.92" L x 7.08" W
Details: Hardcover, 32 pages
Author: Barbara Berger

Testimonials

In rhythmic text paired with translucent art, the story of a pajama-clad boy unfolds, as he pushes off to sea in a cardboard boat and reads a book about Mother Moon, who is looking for her lost "moonlet." But his book falls into the grasp of otters. Here Berger (Grandfather Twilight) deftly divides her tale into two intertwining perspectives: the boy and the otters are reading about their own simultaneous adventure of helping Mother Moon to find her lost child, who is the boy himself.

Simple enough for beginning readers, Berger's text is dreamily evocative: when Mother Moon's tears fall as stars, the otters "wrestled and rolled and rubbed the starlight into their fur"making a "commotion of light" to draw Mother Moon's attention. Berger's watercolors take on the colors of heaven and sea waltzing in tranquil veils of green and blue. She moves from the intimacy of the orphan in his boat reading, to the expansive heavens from which Mother Moon recognizes her lost moonlet with equal agility. A gentle, lulling reverie to ferry youngsters from bedtime to dreamtime. Ages 2-6.
—Publishers Weekly

About Barbara Berger

Barbara Helen Berger grew up loving to draw and paint. She studied Art at the University of Washington in Seattle, her home town, where she earned a BFA degree in Painting. During her five years of study, she also went to Yale Summer School of Music & Art, and to Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy. In Italy she saw the art she had loved from childhood, seen in her father's art books at home.

For ten years after college, she worked as a painter with gallery shows in Seattle. Then beginning in 1980 she turned her focus to children's books. She says, "All along, I loved writing too. My secret wish was to bring art and words together in my own books."

Berger's books have won awards for both the art and writing: the Golden Kite Award for Picture-Illustration, Parents' Choice Foundation Award for Illustration, the Children's Book Award from Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and twice a Washington State Governor's Writers Award. Original paintings from her books have been exhibited around the country. She says, "From beginning to end, the process of creating is still my biggest joy."

Ms. Berger lives on Bainbridge Island, in the Pacific Northwest. She received the honor of an Island Treasure Award in 2006 from the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council.