A lonely girl named Lucy finds a friend in the Blue Moon in the charming and evocative new children's picture book The Moons, published by Minnesota Historical Press.
The Moons is written by Chan Poling, award-winning songwriter, composer, performer and author, and member of the Minnesota band The Suburbs, as well as The New Standards. The book is illustrated by Lucy Michell, an artist and musician from Saint Paul and frontwoman of the band Little Fevers, as well as her Americana solo band.
This is this duo's second book collaboration. Their book Jack and the Ghost was published in 2019. In a recent What We're Reading conversation, Chan and Lucy talk about what first brought them together on book projects and the similarities between creating books and creating music.
Chan and Lucy had worked together musically for several years and during this time Chan had admired Lucy’s work as an illustrator of posters for shows. When Chan first came up with the idea for Jack and the Ghost as an illustrated story, he immediately thought of Lucy for the artwork.
When he got the idea for The Moons, he knew he wanted it to be a children’s book and to let Lucy take on the artwork for it again. Chan’s process for writing books is similar to how he approaches his other projects. “It's kind of the way I've always made art: Do I like it? Do my friends like it? Does my family like it? And then hopefully if we like it the people will like it,” he said.
The Moons is about a girl (also named Lucy) who has just moved away from the city and her friends out to the country where she is very lonely. Chan wanted to explore the theme of loneliness in the story. He said, “It's good to know that we are not alone, that we have each other, and that we have capacity for love and all that. And I think it's a good thing for kids to explore.”
The Lucy in the book befriends the Blue Moon who introduces her to his moon family, each one representing a different phase of the moon. Chan explained, “The moon has a lot of different personalities. If you just look up in the sky every other week it's the gibbous moon, then it's the harvest moon. I thought, what if all those different moons were related? Were a family? And what if we could all interact with them? So, they come down and help Lucy be less lonely.”
The Moons is full of rich, vibrant artwork created by Lucy Michell. She found inspiration in the story and in the idea that we can find solace in nature. Lucy said, “I really wanted to use those bold colors. Nature is so colorful, a beautiful place to be in. I really wanted to try to capture that.”
As successful musicians and songwriters, Chan and Lucy see similarities between creating music and creating children’s books. For Lucy, it’s about finding personal connections.
“People resonate with words or resonate with pictures, and I think you can find your own connection in it and that's how I feel about music too, like maybe I wrote a song that has different meaning to me, but can mean something else to somebody else, and that's how I feel about visual art, too. I think all art has a connection in that way--finding your own personal connection to it.”
For Chan, songwriting and writing for books are both about storytelling. He said, “I'm always thinking of stories. This is why it's so great to have a new outlet. I think children's books and kind of whimsical, smaller things are my speed right now as far as books go.”
Lucy is excited about The Moons and the prospect of future book projects with Chan. She’s grateful to have the opportunity to use her illustrations for their work. “Chan's given me this amazing outlet to use my illustrations, and I feel infinitely grateful for that,” said Lucy.
For more information:
· Chan Poling
· Lucy Michell
· The Moons
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What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.
