

In the beginning the story text was written on the left of the book by itself and the pictures were on the right side. The visuals look like they were created using construction paper, similar to how south park is animated. The picture book was written in in 1987 by Frank Asch. He goes back in the rocket and falls asleep and wakes up back on earth and bird asks how it was and Bear says it was delicious. Bear then eats what he believes is the moon, and he likes it. He then falls asleep in the rocket and Bear is then woken up and thinks he is at the moon. When he finishes building the rocket it is the start of winter, and Bird migrates to the south, and Bear gets in his rocket. Then Bear decides he is going to build a rocket.

Bear ties a spoon at the end and shoots it at the moon, but fails.

They both go to Bears house and Bear gets his bow and arrow. Bird and Bear talk about what the moon might taste like, and if it is even possible. Bird mentions that he is hungry and bear is also hungry, and then he reveals his deepest Desiree to eat the moon. The story starts with Bear and Bird one night looking at the moon. Maybe they both have "seasons" marked as a key word, or something simplistic like that. Since I have not yet read Pavese's novel, I can't say what this story has in common with the one I wanted to order.

Maybe the message is, if your friends are happy in their errors, don't disillusion them? I admired the bear's dedication (he spent months building that spacecraft!) and was glad that he was pleased with the outcome of his endeavor. That's probably the right age to enjoy feeling smarter and more with-it than the bear protagonist, who falls asleep before blasting off in his rocket ship, wakes to see a white landscape of snow, and thinks he has made it to his lunar destination. I didn't especially enjoy it, but I can see it working for a three year old. They hadn't got the Italian novel about adolescent loss of innocence and subsequent disillusionment, and recommended this picture book about a bear eating cake instead. I was looking in the library catalog for Pavese's El bello verano.
