Enrico Casarosa

We read this book online through YouTube at first, then watched the short movie version of it. I loved the concept and the idea of the book. The illustrations were very pretty and the story was very creative and different. La Luna was about a family of three boys, a grandfather, a father, and his son, who went out to sea to watch the moon rise from the water. It was the son's turn to experience this, and he climbed up to the moon, dropped an anchor on it's surface and the family worked on show more cleaning up the stars on the moons surface. When we read this book online there were a lot of great sound effects. For example whenever a star was swept away there was a twinkling sound for it. Both the online read and the short film really captured the magical picture. I thought it was a lovely story for children because it kept you interested and wasn't the typical children's book theme. I have never heard of a story about the moon and how it get's its shape- I just thought it was very clever. I loved it! Especially since it had that Pixar theme and magical touch. show less

A boy learns the family trade, on the moon.

Cute, with some nice whimsy. But apart from the basic idea, there's nothing to the story. And its tendency for swelling music and slow motion make it feel like it has a high opinion of itself.

Concept: A
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 3.0/4

I really enjoyed this book because of how imaginative the story was. The illustrations were very pretty and matched the cuteness of the story very well. This book shared a story of making those around you proud even when there is no explicit expectation of you. In the book, the father and grandfather wanted the boy to help with cleaning the moon, but they never gave him very specific instructions. It almost seemed that they brought him along mostly so that he would have the exiting and show more wondrous experience of coming along. At the end of the tale, the boy had the idea to get rid of the large star on the moon that they were cleaning up. The father and the grandfather both had their own ideas on how to get rid of it, with the father saying, "Pull it up" and the grandfather saying, "Did it out", but neither of them asked what they boy thought. In the end, the boy went above and beyond what was asked of him and showed how unique ideas should be encouraged. Ultimately, I feel that is the 'big picture' of this book. show less

A Pixar animated film (Disney, 2021).

A merboy runs away from home to 1950's Italy.

C (Indifferent).

There are some funny gags, when it bothers to be funny. Mostly it's just a really boring story that has no reason to be longer than 45 minutes. The filmmakers seem to have put all of their effort into creating a particular setting and forgot to give us a reason to be there in the first place.

(Sep. 2023)