Book Review

Moon Tales
Retold by Rina Singh and Debbie Lush
Bloomsbury Publishers, London, England (1999)
Reviewed by Robert Rodriquez

Around the world and throughout the centuries, the moon has been a source of dread, mystery, wonder, and reverence. Just as equally, it has been a source of study and misunderstanding to those wishing to know its secrets. People have tried to bury it, steal it, worship it, and it has been thought to be the cause of everything from changes in the tides to earthquakes, from mental disorders to lycanthropy. It should, therefore, be no surprise that a large body of beliefs, superstitions, and stories have grown up around the earth's closest neighbor.

The ten tales in this slim, but nonetheless intriguing collection come from Canada, England, Poland, Siberia, Hawaii, Australia, India, Japan, China, and West Africa. The moon wears many faces and takes on many roles in these tales, which run the spectrum from tragedy and sadness to whimsy and humor. In a tale from China, the moon becomes judge, jury, and executioner in the punishment of a truly greedy and selfish man. In a tale from Africa, Anansi finds a wondrous silver ball. Unable to decide which of his sons should receive it as a treasure, he hurls it into the sky out of frustration, where it becomes the moon. The "wise" folks of Chelm try to steal the moon to provide their legendary town with perpetual light, but find out that it is a lot harder than they first thought. In a Japanese story, the moon is a princess who comes to earth as a human child to brighten the lives of a poor couple who can not have children of their own. From Hawaii comes the tale of an abused wife, goddess though she may be, who finds to moon to be a place of sanctuary from her abusive husband. In an English tale, the moon is captured and buried by wicked goblins, by revived by the heroism of local folk. In other tales, the moon is a trickster, a spurned lover, a faithful and dutiful child. In all these situations and instances, each lunar persona is brought to life in a most magical and memorable manner by Singh and Lush. Perhaps the most memorable of these is the Siberian story in which the moon must protect her own daughter from the unwanted advances of he solar neighbor's own offspring in a marriage that is certainly not made in heaven.

This collection, though seemingly put together for younger readers, can still be thoroughly enjoyed by older folks as well. The stories read well on the printed page, but also have the distinction of being quite learnable and easy to tell. While this is not a scholarly volume in any sense, the two retellers do include brief notes on each tale, thus giving a cultural identity to the stories. Besides storytellers, this collection may be of value to both librarians and teachers, especially in classes dealing with physical sciences like astronomy, as well as those wishing to integrate storytelling and traditional tales into multi-cultural studies, as well as general world literature. Throughout history, the moon has been thought to be everything from a lump of green cheese to the land of the dead or the home of advanced extra-terrestrials, but perhaps reading these delightful tales may just give a different prospective on what the good, old moon is really all about.

—posted January 2001