The Boy and the Moon (Hardcover)

Wide awake long past his bedtime, a young boy slips outside his house to join some special friends in a nighttime jubilation. Complete with howls and whoops, they joyously celebrate the mystery and magic of the night, basking in the glow of the moonlight. They howled at the moon, they howled at life, and they howled with all things in the night. But their revelry comes to a halt when the moon is caught in the branches of a tree. Is anyone brave enough to climb the tree and save the moon? The boy's creative solution makes everyone happy. 

Written and illustrated by James Christopher Carroll, this treasure of a book uses gorgeous atmospheric paintings to lure readers of all ages into believing that anything can happen - at midnight!

Book Review
By Josh Southard from Smoky Row Elementary School – Carmel, IN

Sometimes magic can be found in the simplest of things, and James Christopher Carroll's The Boy and the Moon is one great example of this.  In this story, a boy's midnight adventure with his friends gets interrupted by the moon getting stuck in a tree.  The adventure comes to a halt as they try to help free the moon and get her back up in the night sky.

A simple story, yet magical in every way.  The beautiful illustrations pull the reader to read with a sense of wonder and enchantment, and with that, comes the musical possibilities.  With my fourth and fifth graders, we took a short rhythmic exercise from Music for Children Vol. I (Murray ed.) and created words to fit.  That rhythm led to a pentatonic melody over a moving bordun.  A slow descending introduction with a wind chime added a dreamlike quality.  From there, the children created movement to accompany the piece.  Next, just as in the boy and his friends had to improvise to free the moon, so did the children.  Using an idea from the story and the rhythmic building blocks, the children improvised B, C, and D sections while the movement groups pantomimed recess games.  Finally, the children decided to start and end the piece with the text that starts and ends the story.  And with that, a simple piece became magical that when finished, a sense of hushed wonder filled the music room.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Josh Southard teaches general music at Smoky Row Elementary School in Carmel, Indiana.  Josh holds a bachelor's degree in Music Education from Butler University and a master's degree in Music Education with Orff Emphasis from Anderson University.  Josh served four years as president of the Indiana Orff chapter and is currently serving as the Region VI Representative on the AOSA National Board.  He has presented across the country for local Orff chapters and at National Conference.  He teaches Level I Basic in Gwinnett County, GA, Anderson University in Indiana, and DePaul University in Chicago.