Long Night Moon, written by Cynthia Rylant, is the best book of poetry I have read so far! It may also be my favorite Cynthia Rylant picture book as well. I was really impressed by both its text and illustrations. The book chronicles one year of moons; one moon for each month. Rylant relates the moons to a Native American tradition of naming the moons of each month.
I loved the charcoal drawings and the beautiful words; they complement each other so well. Even though it is nighttime and the pictures are dark, the light of the moon illuminates the scene enough for the reader to be able to make out the animals and surrounding nature. Each moon has a personality, and the pictures depict the personalities of the moons and the months. The illustrations are done in a 360-degree panorama of the scenery throughout the year.
Rylant’s choice of font is interesting in this book. The font looks like cursive, which is warm and flowy. Maybe she did this in order to help in the transition from scene to scene, since it is flowy. Additionally, cursive, human-like font is more personal than the standard Times New Roman; this lends to the feeling that someone is telling this story about Native American traditions. Additionally, the font color complements the colors used in each scene. This reminds me of what Chris Van Allsburg did in Just a Dream, where he chose certain color families to be used in each illustration. In the picture accompanying the poem about May in this book, the illustrator uses lots of purples; the font is also a shade of purple. This lends to the continuity of the book.
This book seems like it would be a great read-aloud for younger students. It could also be used in a unit to talk about the seasons and how the landscape changes with the changing seasons. After reading this book, I really want to go out and buy it as the first addition to my future classroom library!
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