Reviewed by Charles Ashbacher for Readers' Favorite

Squishy Face and the Moon by Jennifer Oneal Gunn is a combination of the normal fears that children have with some basic science. The two main characters are Squishy Face, a young girl younger than ten, and Big Mama, her mommy. One night Squishy Face gets frightened by the light outside that is coming through her window and her whimpering causes Big Mama to come into her room. Big Mama tells Squishy Face that it is just the moon and there is nothing to be afraid of. Big Mama then gives her a science lesson on the moon, how it goes through a complete phase cycle of approximately 30 days. Big Mama also explains how the moon is largely responsible for the regular movement of the ocean water that we call tides.

The illustrations are in the nature of simple drawings, both in structure as well as in the coloration used, which is soft. All of them have the look of what a child would create with a blank sheet of paper and a box of crayons. In this case that is not a criticism; the young reader will see something familiar if they are a crayon artist. The level of the text is roughly at the age of a first grader, with short, simple sentences and words, and only a few sentences per page of text. Quality science lessons should begin very early as they teach understanding of the world and help overcome the fears that children have. This book is designed to do both - strange light can be scary to children and this one explains how the moon behaves in a manner that the young reader of the target age can understand.