Vancouver author-illustrator and visual-effects animator Jami Gigot’s debut picture book celebrates children’s fascination with the moon. Conveyed in minimal and lucid text, the story tells of a young girl’s affinity for the celestial body. The pigtailed protagonist, Mae, delights in playing games like hide-and-seek with the moon. As the nights elapse, she spies the moon growing thinner, waning to a crescent and then disappearing altogether. The following day, Mae crafts a rocket from a cardboard box and imagines herself boarding the vessel – dubbed the Moon Chaser – and embarking on a quest to find her luminous companion. When night falls and her father beckons her to come inside, Mae discovers the moon has returned.

This sleepy-time tale unfolds against a backdrop of pencil and digital-paint artwork infused with twilight-evoking hues of black, purple, and blue. Gigot lends an innovative visual touch with the use of wordless spreads, which heighten the emotion of the story’s dramatic moments. The moon’s disappearance, depicted as two pages of black sky punctuated with white stars, is a striking example.

The book’s back pastedown offers budding astronomers a labelled diagram of the lunar phases, and opens the door to further exploration and dark-sky dreaming.