Little Moon Dog (review)

Every year the peace of the moon is disturbed by the arrival of tourists. These malevolent little fairies trail "seven shades of trouble" in their wake, but the Man in the Moon has always avoided their mischief by locking his door and nailing his mailbox shut until they go away. Not so this year. They lure his faithful companion, Little Moon Dog, into their wild romps and take him home with them, only to abandon him when their very short attention spans drift elsewhere. Beset by loneliness, the Man in the Moon decides to go in search of his friend, and the two reunite, never to part again, though they do decide to go off on vacations of their own when a fairy visit is due. The illustrations in this British import punctuate the ethereal setting with their delicate luminosity, as does the cover's nubbly sheen. The sharpness of tiny detail in the faces and figures of the fey folk and lunar landscapes is softened by a fuzzed texture of graphite and colored pencil lightly applied, giving everything an appropriately transparent solidity. The palette is a little mistily indistinct, but pastel colors, especially in the yellow-green family, are deployed to good use to suggest the reflected light one would experience on the moon set against a deep navy sky. Though the dog is a bit too generic to be appealing on his looks alone, the fairies are delightfully grumpy and ill-mannered, and the old man is decidedly moonish, from his oversized head to his Ben Franklin glasses to his benevolent expression. The wistful illustrations thus effectively complement the poignancy in the story of a foolish pup tempted beyond what he can bear, only to find that home and the steadfast love of one significant other is always better than the glittery appeal of the fickle at heart.