Title: Many Moons
Author: James Thurber
Illustrator: Louis Slobodkin
Publisher: Voyager Books, 1943
Number of pages: 43
Tags: Award Book, Family, Fantasy, Fiction, Picture Book, Grace Sheley
Genre: Fiction
The story opens with a young princess, Lenore, falling ill and requesting the king to retrieve the moon for her so that she may get well again. The king asks the advice of the Lord High Chamberlain, the Royal Wizard, and the Royal Mathematician – none of whom know how to retrieve the moon for the young princess. Frustrated and worried, the king calls in the Court Jester to play some music to soothe him. The Jester suggests asking Princess Lenore how large she believes the moon is and promptly goes to her bedside to do so. The Princess responds that it is no bigger than her thumbnail and the Jester cleverly decides to have a metal craftsman make a thumbnail-size moon necklace for the princess to wear. A similar trial of the king asking his advisors about how to hide the moon’s reappearance the next night from Princess Lenore follows, and once again, the Jester outwits them all by speaking with the Princess about how when one thing is lost, another takes its place.
The text is a fairly light-hearted story with nothing too deep taking place. It primarily serves as a fantasy, fictional story as a sort of escapism from reality: the ridiculous suggestions of gathering the moon made by the Jester and Princess Lenore are purposely absurd but in an innocent and curious way.
The illustrations are not strictly framed but do not interact with the text visually. There are no harsh lines and even faces are difficult to make out and are presented in a more abstract style. The colors are light and faded. They serve to illustrate the action in a way that adds to the story, but they are not necessary to understand the plot. In all of the pictures depicting the king and his advisors, the king is positioned higher in the illustration than the other men to show his position of power. Princess Lenore is almost always in her bed, much smaller than anyone who comes to visit her (including the Court Jester). This suggests that she is much less powerful than anyone else, perhaps due to her age and her social status as a female.
