Customer Reviews

Crab Moon

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Crab Moon is a gem. Ruth Horowitz's evocative prose brings to life an experience that few people will get to have--witnessing thousands of horseshoe crabs massing on the beach under the full moon for their annual egg-laying. Kate Kiesler's paintings express the mood perfectly.

The book tells a simple story. Daniel is woken in the night by his mother, and taken to the beach to watch the crabs. The next morning, he goes out alone to find a crab stranded on her back. He empathizes with the odd-looking creature, and finds a way of turning her over so that she may return to the sea.

Crab Moon is salted with interesting horseshoe crab facts, and it allows readers to share in Daniel's feeling of connection with a threatened and misunderstood species. But while the book both informs the reader and evokes respect for nature's creations, its tone is always poetic rather than pedantic or preachy. In fact, with its warm, dreamy feel and its invoking of ancient natural rhythms, Crab Moon should make an ideal bedtime story.

This book is a really nice story about how you can get to know horseshoe crabs better. I love the night time illustrations. I like remembering when my family went out looking at horseshoe crabs near Cape May New Jersey. It was very special like the story in this book. I wanted to know even more about horseshoe crabs than a picture book can tell you so I also read Extraordinary Horseshoe Crabs by Julie Dunlap. If you have both of these books you will really know a lot about horseshoe crabs which are really cool.

My grandson is 4 yrs. old and enjoyed this book and asked very appropriate questions. We go to a beach that has always had an abundance of horseshoe crabs and eggs on the beach, and many shorebirds. The numbers have markedly decreased in recent years and this is a great tool for him to associate firsthand the results of human influence on wildlife. The illustrations are so pretty and we've left the book out for anyone to look at, both children and adults, at our beach house.

Another beautiful book, nice text, beautiful artwork, nice story about a child learning about horseshoe crabs and their lives and their place in the natural cycle. Well worth having for children, and especially at a beach house.

Living on Delaware's eatern shore we experience the Crab Moon. Gift to share the experience with my west coast niece,

Excellent story and trade book to use with elementary children. Perfect for teaching the horshoe crab concept and a must for your classroom library.