Review: New Moon, Hiding Moon

New Moon, Hiding Moon: A Playful Action Rhyme

by Amy Vatner, illustrated by Patti Argoff

Hachai, 2025

Category: Board Books

Reviewer: Arlene Rosenfeld Schenker

 

This board book introduces the littlest tykes to the moon’s phases with short rhyming verses and big bold, color-saturated illustrations. Each page is a delight to look at and read. The verses begin with a dark sky and then continue with a crescent moon, a half-moon, a three-quarter moon, a full moon, and then back again to a hiding moon. Each phase is associated with something familiar to very young children: smiles, pizza, the boy’s kippa, a circle. Children will be drawn into the story even more by the illustrations which prompt them to trace their own smiles and make circles in the air.

The children in the story are clearly from an observant Jewish family as the two boys are wearing kippot and the older boy is wearing tzitzit. The fact of the new moon signaling a new month in the Jewish calendar is only indicated on the last page and only linked to the Hebrew words, “Rosh Chodesh,” on the back cover. Despite the scarcity of Jewish content in the text, it is clear from the cover and illustrations that the book is targeted at Jewish families, and it serves well as an introduction to the Jewish solar-lunar calendar for a very young audience.

 

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Reviewer Arlene Rosenfeld Schenker has worked as a New York City primary grade teacher, lawyer, divorce mediator, community activist and volunteer. Her debut picture book, CALL ME GEBYANESH, was published by Apples & Honey Press in April, 2025.