THE MOON INSIDE

A young girl’s fear of the dark is quieted when she explores the night with her mother in Feder (Daisy’s Big Night, 2014) and Sicuro’s (Bright Sky, Starry City, 2015) first collaboration.

Every evening, Ella dreads the arrival of the dark. As the sun begins to set, she goes through her house with her mother, turning on lights to replace the sun’s yellow glow and keep the dark at bay. When Ella laments the sun’s departure and the disappearance of yellow, her favorite color, from her world, her mother coaxes her outside into the twilight and encourages her to take a look around. Ella sees the moon first, and once she really starts to look, it’s not long before she realizes that yellow hasn’t disappeared after all. Blinking fireflies and the moon itself fill the night with Ella’s favorite color, and she finds that the quietness of night is special, too. When she returns inside, Ella still turns on a few lights, but she welcomes the moon as a nighttime companion until the sun returns. Transitioning from spreads awash in warm daylight to lush and vibrant night scenes, Sicuro’s watercolors lend a quiet, emotional depth to Feder’s unhurried narrative. Ella’s race and ethnicity are not explored in either text or images, which depict her and her mother with paper-white skin and dark hair, but her discovery will appeal to any readers who have ever found themselves embracing a new part of their world.

A lovely addition to any bedtime repertoire.