A Big Mooncake for Little Star (Caldecott Honor Book)

Little Star and her mama bake a delicious-looking mooncake in this original pourquoi story explaining how the phases of the moon came to be. Warned not to snack, Little Star goes obediently to bed, only to wake in the darkness of the night hungry. Slowly, over time, she nibbles away at the

Show More

mooncake, until it is all gone. Then she and Mama must bake a new one...

Inspired by her love of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, which she explored more explicitly in her picture-book, Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Grace Lin took one of the central aspects of that celebration - the consumption of mooncakes - and wove an original fairy-tale from it. Little Star's nibbling here explains the phases of the moon, as it goes from round and full to entirely "missing," appearing once again as she and her mama bake another cake. The artwork here, done in gouache paint on watercolor paper, is absolutely gorgeous, and well worthy of the Caldecott Honor it won. I loved the deep black backgrounds, and how the "crumbs" from Little Star's nibbling leads to the appearance of stars on that background. Little Star and her mother are expressively depicted, and one gets a sense of the love between them. Recommended to Grace Lin fans, fairy-tale lovers, and anyone looking for children's stories with relevance for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.

Show Less

This is a magical book. I first expected it to have something to do with the Chinese Moon Festival, but nothing so mundane. Little Star and her mother live in a house that contains things like ovens, beds, and shelves, but mostly everything is black without apparent walls, creating a sense of the

Show More

uncanny and otherworldly. The two dress in black clothing covered with stars that create a kind of optical illusion. Against the black background, the lines of the clothing tend to disappear. Grace Lin relies on our tendency to seek patterns to see the shape of the clothing as suggested by the stars. She captures Little Star's toddler body, a baby growing into a child, so perfectly that one can imagine how she would feel in a hug. The mischief on her face when she wakes up and thinks about the Mooncake will be familiar with anyone accustomed to small children.

Show Less

In A BIG MOONCAKE FOR LITTLE STAR, Little Star's mama bakes a Big Mooncake, and lays it "onto the night sky to cool." Though Little Star promises not to touch it, she wakes up and takes a nibble. Night after night, Little Star returns for a tiny taste, eating away at it in the shape of a waning

Show More

moon, until it's whittled down to a slim crescent. One night, Mama discovers that the Mooncake's gone, "just a trail of twinkling crumbs." Little Star fesses up and pulls Mama back to the kitchen so the two can bake another Big Mooncake.

Show Less

Cute book about the moon stages in which Little Star's mom bakes a big mooncake which Little Star gradually nibbles away. Illustrations show up well against the dark background.

I love this book, I love how the little girl overtime went back to eat the cake. Yet made me wounder during the day did the mother not see the cake getting smaller? Yet I love that the love for her daughter she did not care about the cake as the baked another. The lover parents have for their

Show More

children, amazes me. Makes me wonder what kind of mother I will be?

Show Less

Little Star's mom baked a moon-cake. She was told not to eat it, although she didn't listen and ended up grabbing a small piece every night, until the mom noticed. They ended up baking another cake. This book is funny the mom was being stingy with her cake. This could be used for math class to show

Show More

fractions. The intended audience is children.

Show Less

This is an interesting and lovely illustrated Caldecott Honor Book. Incorporating the Chinese tradition of the art of making moon cakes, in this story Little Star and her mother made a large Moon Cake. She was told not to eat any of the cake.

Drawn to the cake, she snuck out of bed each night to

Show More

each just a little piece. Then, she ate so much that the cake gradually took on the shapes of the moon, full, 3/4, 1/2 and then 1/4 until, the moon cake is finished eating. Then, another is made!

Show Less

This quickly became one of my favorite children's books! This is an adorable tale to explain why the moon changes size every night. The artist uses bright colors against a black background to create contrast, with the white of the text glowing against the black of the night sky.

The deceptively

Show More

simple color palette and story text result in a rich story that will encourage participation from children. The curving onomatopoeias encourage the reader to draw it out as if they were able to taste the mooncake themselves. ⁠
⁠
A wonderful book for one on one storytime. Can you taste the mooncake?

Show Less

Magical -- a dreamy, minimalist moon story that just sucks you in. Delightful!