Moon Tales is a handsome book. Tucked between its deep blue endpapers dancing with stars and moons are 10 moon-themed folk tales with fat cushion-shaped windows of illustration, richly coloured paintings of mountains, forests, jungles, farms, woodcutters, witches, childless couples, wise elders, distressed parents, and the ever-present moon. Illustrator Debbie Lush does a fine job with the challenge presented by such a diverse collection of international folklore. Instead of attempting historic and cultural realism, she invents a cast of small skinny-legged, variously coloured people painted in a flat naive style and set in stylized landscapes in moon colours of blue, purple, and silver. There are little hints of specific times and places – a pagoda-style roof, a yarmulke. But really this collection is set in a universal folk-world, an approach that leads to a pleasingly designed, unified book that’s funny without loss of dignity, warm but not clichéd, respectful without stiffness. This is Lush’s first book for children but she seems a very confident illustrator, especially with the bedtime story crowd.

The retellings of the stories, by Canadian writer Rina Singh, take a similar approach to the unity and diversity issue. Names of characters and places – Mount Fuji, a Polynesian angel named Lauhuki, Peivalke, the Siberian son of the sun – locate us in different worlds, but the shapes of the stories, the voice in which they are told, and the narrative style – short declarative sentences on the whole – remain unified and consistent. However, unlike the illustrations, the retellings struck me, particularly when read aloud, as somewhat overcareful and conservative. The stories themselves are good ones and the tellings are clear and unpretentious but they lack the lip-smacking phrases and arresting images of memorable reworkings. For example, in the English story “The Buried Moon,” Singh has obviously gone back to an early version of this Lincolnshire story as recorded from its oral source. (I can’t be sure because no sources are given, an annoying editorial decision that I find disrespectful to both readers and to the cultures represented. These stories do not exist in a vacuum. But perhaps you hear the beginnings of a rant here. I will desist.) Singh’s version is very similar to that in Katharine Briggs’ Dictionary of British Folk-Tales. Like other retellers she adds details to the bare-bones story, but in a very restrained way. Her description of the torture of the trapped moon by wicked dark spirits gets the information across but blandly: “They kicked and abused her, all the while mocking her, for she was an old enemy of theirs.” Compare this to Joseph Jacob’s toothsome description in English Fairy Tales: “They came crowding round her, mocking and snatching and beating; shrieking with rage and spite, and swearing and snarling, for they knew her for their old enemy, that drove them back into the corners, and kept them from working their wicked wills.” What I sense in Singh’s retellings is a lack of confidence, the confidence to break out into a little riff. This might be a built-in problem with a collection of international tales. How is one person supposed to feel confident in 10 very separate and diverse cultures? This collection has steered well clear of confusion, of too many voices and styles in a single volume, but floats a bit close to homogeneity.

Another book that involves a balancing act from both writer and illustrator is I Wished for a Unicorn. Robert Heidbreder’s rhyming text begins: “I wished for a unicorn. / I wished so hard / That I found a unicorn/ in my backyard.” In the following stanzas we learn that this scruffy unicorn barks and digs up bones. What is an illustrator to do with this gentle collusion between poet and listener? Give the game away too soon with an illustration of a dog? Undercut the imaginative transformation by picturing a unicorn?

Kady MacDonald Denton was an inspired choice to deal with this question. Her doggy unicorn or unicornish dog – white, lively, and in a state of adoration with the narrator – is whatever you want him to be. In the narrow but rich territory between making and believing, Heidbreder and Denton each bring a light touch to this celebration of a child’s imaginative play. The real world here is a bare backyard. There are a couple of trees, a wading pool with an inflatable toy, and a view over the fence of high-rise buildings and a ball park. From these raw materials the narrator – a small girl with the energy and dramatic flair of Maurice Sendak’s Rosie – creates an adventure with a castle, a dragon, an evil wizard, and a treasure map. She and the canine unicorn storm and zap and shrink and dig. And then, in a classic denouement, they yawn and fall asleep. Heidbreder’s text is very simple, four-line stanzas with a predictable rhyme scheme and an absolutely consistent child point of view. No winking at adults over children’s heads here. He leaves Denton lots of room to add characters (such as a pair of gracious knights), emotion (particularly in the face of the hero, as she is by turns imperious, satisfied, coy, and determined), and even a touch of naughtiness (when a small bare-bummed wizard flees stage left). If you look hard you can see that the shape of the castle and the shape of the high-rises match, that the inflatable wading pool toy and the moat monster have the same pink polka dots. But this is subtle and rather than explaining away the magic, it enhances it. Is the high-rise real or is the castle? Is the sidekick a dog or a unicorn? Was it all a dream or did it really happen? As in all successful imaginative creations, there is only one answer: Yes.