The Moon Keeper

On an exciting night for Emile the polar bear, he learns his fellow “night creatures” have selected him as the new moon keeper. Honored by the important task, Emile begins keeping watch over the moon, which includes visiting the moon, shooing away bats, and clearing away obscuring clouds. Soon, Emile is alarmed to see the moon is getting smaller each night. He offers the moon some food—a slice of watermelon—and even calls his “cousin in in the jungle”—a leopard holding a red landline phone—who confirms the moon is looking smaller to him, too. Emile is reassured, though, by a big, green bird who tells him, “Things come and go—you’ll see.” Not long after, the moon reappears and again grows to its full size. Next to a resolution that is too simple, the biggest problem with a story idea that is otherwise creative and fun is that the story requires suspending belief that Emile and other characters should have noticed the moon going through its phases before, a difficult ask. Zosienka’s creativity and humor is delightful, with Emile walking through the sky vacuuming clouds, offering a partially eaten watermelon to the moon, and having a leopard for a cousin. Comically as well, the big, green bird is, for some unexplained reason, literally as big as Emile, a fully grown polar bear. Zosienka’s colored pencil and gouache illustrations are warm, rich, and full of delightful character fitting her likable, moon-keeping polar bear.