Moon Pops

Product Information

These aliens just show up after a night of the apartment complex having a moon pop (the melted moon frozen into popsicles) party. The first six pages pull readers into a lush, beautiful world of nighttime: “When the sun has set, silence falls over the Big Forest, and all of the nighttime animals wake up. One of the grannies struggling with the heat decides to make ice pops out of the melting moon, but while that does keep everyone cool, it leaves the rabbits from the moon homeless. Based on the Korean fable of the moon rabbit, the tale takes place in a multistory apartment building at night. When Granny discovers that the moon is melting—the dripping luminescent moon makes for a surreal and indelible image—she catches some drops in a bucket and whips up a batch of glowing moon pops, which cool everyone off.

This retelling of the Korean folktale of the Legend of the Moon Rabbit is the perfect book to read on a sweltering summer evening. One classroom used Moon Pops to teach the structure of an LE book project, work that will begin soon.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I thought it was interesting that the story glossed over the fact that this is a folktale to explain the cycles of the moon, and I would love to discover why Baek made that choice. Baek illustrates the tale with photographs of intricate 3D dioramas that use light and shadow to beguiling effect. The art style feels like a stop-motion collage with dioramas for the background and miniature objects and black and white illustrations for the animal characters.

This story shows the compassion of a stranger to her neighbors and her creativity while trying to solve the problem of her neighbors struggling with the extreme heat. Annemarie, the art teacher, has enjoyed reading Edgar and Lucy by Victor Lodato, My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, and Karma: A Yogi’s Guide to Crafting Your Destiny by Sadhguru. A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum is very interesting story about three generations of Palestinian women, the younger ones now living in modern day Brooklyn, NY.This would make a great classroom read for young elementary school children learning about folklore from around the world. According to Korean legend, a rabbit lives in the moon, and this story puts a cute twist on the idea of the makeup of the moon. My only quibble, was if the moon melted (and was thus liquid), but all the power went out, how did granny manage to freeze the moon pops? The children could describe the weather outside at the moment and compare it to the weather in the story.

Marcie, an LE teacher, enjoyed Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (one of my favorites), Leave the World Behind by Rumann Alam, and Math Games with Bad Drawings by Ben O rlin. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA! I had *no* idea what was coming next while I read Moon Pops by this 2020 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award-winning author-illustrator - and I love that about it. The intelligence of Granny and her willingness to share and help make for an unusual folktale of community both nearby and far.

I thought the story was interesting and I think kids will have a really fun time making the sounds highlighted throughout the story. All is finally quiet, until two rabbits come knocking at the door—they have come from the moon, which has melted away. The artist uses real figurines and perfect lighting to capture the most pleasant way to portray this story. I loved the characterization of Granny as someone who can solve any problem, whether it is the heat or the loss of the rabbits’ home on the moon. It's a Korean folktale, but I don;t think it can be too old as freezers, air conditioning haven'[t been around too long.

An Honor Book in the 2022 Boston Globe-Horn Book Picture Book Awards, Moon Pops is a re-telling of a Korean folktale.It’s wonderful to walk down the Lower Elementary hallway and see the brightly colored art the students did in response to their summer book, Moon Pops by Heena Baek. One sweltering summer night, while the many residents of one apartment building are struggling to fall asleep, the moon begins to melt. Moon Pops”, written and illustrated by Heena Baek, and translated from Korean by Jieun Kiaer, is a modern spin off of the old Korean folktale of the Moon Rabbit. She collects the melting moon in a pot and when the power goes out decides to make it in to moon pops to cool herself and the rest of the apartment complex cool. Author-illustrator Heena Baek won the 2020 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and this is the first of her books to be published in English.