Moon Messenger, early elementary Mid-Autumn Festival poetry primer

Because I teach ESL to Chinese students the mid-Autumn Festival has been in our vocabulary for many years. Moon Messenger is an illustrated book by Wei Jie, with art by Xia Xinxin that tells the story of what most of my students say is their second favorite festival. Essentially, the Mid-Autumn Festival family and is centered on the full moon at the time. There is also a large component of the holiday where you eat moon cakes. Moon cakes are kind of like mochi, which is a bean paste that some people love and others can tolerate it if it has some fruit on it. Chinese snacks aside, the book is about one child’s desire to see his father, who’s on a business trip and how the full moon plays a part in it.

The boy writes a postcard to his dad and kindly asks the moon to help pass along the message. She’s takes the postcard and starts her journey across China, lighting up skyscrapers, mountains and valleys along the way. As the journey goes on she meets lots of people who want to spend time with her. All the while, she makes polite apologies to them because she has to meet the boy’s father.

A little girl catches the moon in a bucket of water. This is a nice touch because it alludes to a fairy tale that most Chinese kids are familiar with. The ole ‘catching the moon in the water’ trick is one that’s repeated in a couple other cultures too. That concept, or the idea that something can vary wildly depending on your viewpoint is crucial to Moon Messenger.

At the end of the book, Maomao and his mom look up at the moon from his home. His dad is looking up at the moon from where he is on his business trip. All three of them are sharing a moment even without being together because the instance is happening in their hearts.

The illustrations in the book have a different look than western readers might be used to. Younger readers might describe it as ‘artsy’, while their slightly older sibling might call it slightly surreal with aspects of folk art. The text is on a level that ages eight and up will be able to read. It is poetry based so there are many rhyming lines for young readers to consume also.

Most audiences will be attracted to the book to its worldly feel and the fact that it’s in English and Chinese. If you’re got a child who is studying Mandarin they’ll be able to test their reading comprehension in either language. As a book, the story is a calming, end-of-day tale that aims to wind kids down at the end of a day. It is not a breakdown of how to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. Rather, it’s a soft way to illustrate the underlying aspect of being together and how the moon can be a unifying force in that. After all, the same moon that I see in Atlanta is the same one that they see in Shanghai, albeit at different times.

Moon Messenger is a good world or poetry book that parents will want to check out at the library or have in the classroom if cultural studies will enter their circles of interest. There is not a phonetic breakdown or character dictionary. So students who are studying Chinese might want to bring their own dictionary to the book if learning characters is their goal.

Moon Messenger is by Wie Jie with illustrations by Xia Xinxin and available on Tuttle Publishing.

There are affiliate links in this post.