At midnight, a boy steps outside to howl and dance with animals under a swirling periwinkle sky in debut author/illustrator Carroll’s story of moonlight revelry and a boy’s ingenuity. When the moon gets stuck in a tree, the boy bravely ascends, feeding it apples and allowing the now “full” moon to roll out of the tree. There’s an overall eerie feel to Carroll’s artwork that won’t appeal to all tastes—the degree to which the moon and a flower are personified feels especially strange next to the actual boy—but the story has an undeniable pull, as “They howled at the moon, they howled at life, and they howled with all the things in the night.” Ages 4 6.

Carroll’s first picture-book effort uses a dreamy, softened palette and swirly, curved movement to convey the silvery magic of a moonlit evening. Collage effects—in the craggy surface of the moon and the siding of a house, for instance—lend dimensional texture. The overall mood is one of whimsy and wonder as a small boy in star-embellished pajamas, accompanied by a bevy of small companions (dog, owl, flower, rabbit, toad, and chicken), sashays outside for a nighttime romp. When the moon gets itself caught in the branches of an apple tree, no one but the boy is brave enough, or tree-climbing-capable enough, to help out. Still, he is unable to budge the moon. But then the child has an ingenious idea, “a delicious thought, a bright, ripe, red thought.” He feeds the moon the tree’s fruit until the moon grows big, fat and round, and can be rolled free. The satisfying sense of accomplishment portrayed will give small readers a subtle feeling of confidence. A unique addition to bedtime collections. Preschool-Kindergarten.

Moonlit midnight revels nearly end in disaster until a small boy comes to the rescue. It’s midnight, and a boy with a teddy bear, a dog, a rabbit, an owl, a chicken, a toad and a flower gather in the backyard to dance and howl at the moon in joyous abandon. Somehow the moon gets stuck in an apple tree, which brings the dancing and howling to a halt. Who can help the moon? Owl’s afraid of heights, rabbit doesn’t feel lucky, toad hides, the flower faints, chicken has a bellyache and dog can’t climb trees. The boy, however, bravely scales the tree, but he can’t dislodge the moon from its branches—until he uses what’s available to save the night. Carroll’s magical illustrations transform his simple plot into a luminous moonlight fantasy. Crafted from paint, found objects and natural textures, his collages in midnight blues and silvery whites bathe the cavorting revelers in ethereal moonlight. Close-ups of the anthropomorphized moon interacting with the pajama-clad boy add to the overall aura of magical realism. Marvelous nighttime madness. (Picture book. 4-6)