The Moon Might Be Milk by Lisa Shulman, illustrated by Will Hillenbrand

Just came home from an NCCBA meeting. I would link that acronym to a website for the Northern California Children's Booksellers Association, but there isn't one. Part of the meeting was devoted to the planning and design of our website, which would be a very handy thing to have in times like these.

Another chunk of time at the meeting was devoted to author presentations. Each month, up to three authors are invited to talk about their upcoming titles. This is a great place to do it, because almost everyone at the meeting is an independent children's bookseller interested in both great new titles and promoting local authors.

Today's guests were Wendy Lichtman and Lisa Shulman. Lisa showed us two of her upcoming books, one of which was The Moon Might Be Milk. This is a really cute and clever story about a little girl, Rosie, who sees the bright full moon and wonders what it is made of. Each animal she asks has a different answer: the cat thinks it's a saucer of milk, the hen thinks it's an egg, etc. But she is not convinced, and goes to ask her grandmother.

Rosie's grandmother hears out all the animal's opinions, and considers each item as she adds it to a big bowl. Before long, Rosie realizes that the ingredients in the bowl will soon be her favorite cookies: big, pale, moon-shaped sugar cookies. So that's what the moon is made of.

The booksellers were charmed, or at least made appropriate encouraging noises. Lisa told us that she was so glad to see the book being released because it had been a long, long time coming. She had sold the manuscript in 1999.

The Moon Might Be Milk by Lisa Shulman, illustrated by Will Hillenbrand

Tags: children's books nccba Lisa Shulman