Sun & Moon: A Giant Love Story - Hardcover

Desimini, Lisa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590187201 ISBN 13: 9780590187206

Publisher: Scholastic, 1999

Synopsis

A girl giant, afraid of the light, and a boy giant, afraid of the dark, live lonely lives following only the moon or the sun until an eclipse brings them together.

About this title

Reviews

PreSchool-Grade 4-Imaginative, mixed-media illustrations bring this unusual love story to life. A giant girl walks around the world, following the moon and looking for someone her size. On the opposite side of the planet, a sun-loving boy, also a giant, searches for another person as large as himself. The two are "as far apart as the sun and moon-as far apart as two people could be." A two-page spread shows the Earth with day and the boy on one side and night and the girl on the other. When the sun and moon move closer together, the girl begins to dream of sunshine while the boy dreams of moonbeams. The two planets meet (in a solar eclipse) and the lonely giants finally see one another. United at last, they stay together, sharing night and day, while the sun and moon continue to move. "They were giants on the same planet...and they belonged together." Desimini's light telling fits this unusual tale. The illustrations are fascinating, with inventive perspectives and beautiful deep colors. The contrast between the girl's night world and the boy's daytime stands out clearly, making the eventual meeting of the two especially pleasing. The grand illustrations and the simple fable clearly (but subtly) convey the larger idea that love and friendship might be found in someone different from yourself.
Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Desimini's (My House) surreal mixed-media images light up a larger-than-life romance. Living on opposite sides of a planet, a lonely giantess ("Her feet were on the ground and her head was in the heavens") and a lonely giant ("His feet were on the ground and his head was in the clouds") wander the globe, each looking for someone the same size. She searches by night, following the moon; he searches by day, following the sun; and it takes an eclipse to bring the two together. This familiar-seeming tale of love sought and found is spun out in a series of sophisticated illustrations. Blending paintings, photographs, fresh fruit and even Desimini's own hair, these computer-assisted images continually surprise readers with unexpected juxtapositions and an arrestingly off-center balance of visual elements. One illustration, for example, shows the boy asleep, his Gulliver-size body prone amid broccoli-like trees, a flock of birds cloaking him for warmth. Conjuring a haunting alternative world, these startling pictures bespeak an original artistic vision. Ages 4-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Boy meets girl in this contemporary parable about the strength of love and friendship. Two giants inhabit the planet but never meetone is a girl ``who was so tall her feet were on the ground and her head was in the heavens,'' the other a boy with his feet on the ground and his head in the clouds. Like night and day, the two wander endlessly in search of a companion their own size. In their loneliness, they can't find each other, until an eclipse brings the personified sun and moon together, ``face to face.'' Symbolically, the girl gives the precious gift of a star she has caught in her pocket to help with his fear of the dark, and the boy plucks a cloud from the sky to shade the sun because she is unaccustomed to bright daylight. Hand in hand, ``the boy and girl learned to laugh, and they learned to play,'' conveying their message of belonging. Computer-scanned imageshair, fabric, photos, pieces of paintingcombine in other-worldly montages of the giants' lives. The sentiments are lovely, but the tale is driven more by the art and symbolism than plot. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 4^-8. Desimini's enchanting fable gives a different slant to the idea that love makes the world go round. A girl in a dress made of starry twilight has her feet on the ground but her head in the heavens. She has "mooniness, which means she is lonely and follows the moon." A boy in a sun-dappled sweatshirt with his feet on the ground but his head in the clouds is afraid of the dark, so he follows the sun. Because they are giants, they can see afar and rescue travelers, but both are sad, though the girl lights folk's way with falling stars, and the boy makes shadow puppets he wishes he could share. When they start dreaming, though, the boy of moonbeams, and the girl of sunshine, even the smallest of children can see the joyful inevitability of their finding each other. As they learn to laugh and to play together, she wears a luminous sundress and he gets star-spangled shorts. The common fear of being alone in the world, and the universal longing to find one's other half, are elucidated with exquisite simplicity and directness in a text of only a few lines per page. The illustrations, of mixed media collage and paint reimaged through computer wizardry, are fabulous: the azure and amethyst and buttergold colors glow from the round world that the giant boy and girl stride across; details such as a tiny pail and shovel on the seashore and a minute bunny that watches the heroine while she sleeps (and later reappears with a partner bunny on the last, blissful spread) offer much for the eye to feast on. GraceAnne A. DeCandido

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0590187201
• ISBN 13: 9780590187206
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40