A Big Mooncake for Little Star

"Little Star has trouble resisting the Big Mooncake that Mama has hung in the sky in Lin’s (When the Sea Turned Silver, 2016, etc.) luminous departure from her usual block-print style.

After Little Star and her mama, both wearing jet-black pajamas adorned with bright yellow stars, bake a huge yellow mooncake, Mama reminds Little Star to leave it in the sky to cool. Of course Little Star tries, but she wakes in the night, unable to resist taking a tiny nibble. Mama surely won’t notice. Each subsequent night, Little Star steals another bite, and soon observant readers may realize what is happening: The Big Mooncake is waning from a full moon to a new moon. Lin’s storytelling is both clever and radiant. Painted in gouache against show more perfectly black pages, the characters’ pajamas have no edges, only the stars defining the separation between foreground and background. The mooncake gleams against the black as well, crumbs scattering like stars in the sky—a visual delight, suffusing the book with a feeling of otherworldliness that is offset by Little Star’s childlike authenticity and her loving relationship with Mama. An author’s note on the jacket flap indicates that while this story is not rooted in Chinese cosmology, it is Lin’s homage to the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, her “favorite Asian holiday.”

A warm and glowing modern myth. (Picture book. 3-8)" www.kirkusrevews.com, A Kirkus Starred Review show less

Little Star and her mama bake a delicious-looking mooncake in this original pourquoi story explaining how the phases of the moon came to be. Warned not to snack, Little Star goes obediently to bed, only to wake in the darkness of the night hungry. Slowly, over time, she nibbles away at the mooncake, until it is all gone. Then she and Mama must bake a new one...

Inspired by her love of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, which she explored more explicitly in her picture-book, Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Grace Lin took one of the central aspects of that celebration - the consumption of mooncakes - and wove an original fairy-tale from it. Little Star's nibbling here explains the phases of the moon, as it goes from show more round and full to entirely "missing," appearing once again as she and her mama bake another cake. The artwork here, done in gouache paint on watercolor paper, is absolutely gorgeous, and well worthy of the Caldecott Honor it won. I loved the deep black backgrounds, and how the "crumbs" from Little Star's nibbling leads to the appearance of stars on that background. Little Star and her mother are expressively depicted, and one gets a sense of the love between them. Recommended to Grace Lin fans, fairy-tale lovers, and anyone looking for children's stories with relevance for the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. show less

This quickly became one of my favorite children's books! This is an adorable tale to explain why the moon changes size every night. The artist uses bright colors against a black background to create contrast, with the white of the text glowing against the black of the night sky.

The deceptively simple color palette and story text result in a rich story that will encourage participation from children. The curving onomatopoeias encourage the reader to draw it out as if they were able to taste the mooncake themselves. ⁠
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A wonderful book for one on one storytime. Can you taste the mooncake?

Little Star and her mother bake a Mooncake, which Little Star secretly nibbles each night, explaining the phases of the moon in a whimsical tale. This story blends folklore with a mother-daughter bond.This book creatively merges cultural folklore with scientific concepts, making learning delightful for young readers.

In A BIG MOONCAKE FOR LITTLE STAR, Little Star's mama bakes a Big Mooncake, and lays it "onto the night sky to cool." Though Little Star promises not to touch it, she wakes up and takes a nibble. Night after night, Little Star returns for a tiny taste, eating away at it in the shape of a waning moon, until it's whittled down to a slim crescent. One night, Mama discovers that the Mooncake's gone, "just a trail of twinkling crumbs." Little Star fesses up and pulls Mama back to the kitchen so the two can bake another Big Mooncake.

This book was so cute. I loved the way that Little Star eats the moon cake takes shape of the moon cycle, and the crumbs are the stars. The illustrations were so exquisite, I loved this story.

Cute, but young me would have been so very peeved - it's not like the moon wanes to dark and then boom is round again. Also, young me would have considered the little girl naughty, not adorable. I think maybe this book is written for parents...