Reviews

PreS-Gr 2A glossy, commercial production of a song by the popular country-music star. The message is clear and the illustrations suggest ways that a person might help someone else. In the full-color paintings, one child fixes the others bike wheel, another tends to a friends scraped elbow. The closing spread shows the children, hand in hand, standing together midair to form a bridge. The lyrics are repeated on the last page. The multiethnic, tirelessly cheerful, clean youngsters look stiff and posed. The hope for a peaceful world and love for all is an admirable one, but here its been packaged for sale, not interwoven within a real story. The song might be a favorite with Judds fans, but it does not translate effectively into a picture book.Jane Marino, Scarsdale Public Library, NY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Judd, the elder half of country music's superstar mother-daughter duo The Judds, spins the lyrics of their hit song into a sentimental picture book about the ripple effect of love and good deeds. Each verse/ stanza speaks of making sacrifices in the name of love ("I'd gladly walk across the desert with no shoes upon my feet./ To share with you the last bite/ of bread I had to eat"); meanwhile, Duranceau (Follow the Moon) depicts pairs of multiracial children performing various kindnesses for each other. A girl shares her sandwich with a boy; that boy helps another boy who has fallen on the playground; the second boy visits a friend in the hospital, and so on. The chain of events shown in Duranceau's creamy, lifelike portraits captures Judd's theme: "Love can build a bridge/ between your heart and mine,/ Love can build a bridge./ Don't you think it's time?" Confusingly, one spread appears to break the continuous link between the children to begin a new succession of kid-to-kid encounters. Judd's call for harmony, respect and responsibility is inarguably worthwhile. That said, Judd's foreword, in which she describes "hunkering down" with her dog to watch a homeless man sleeping on a bench (and never offering him help) is an uncomfortable fit with her text. An audiocassette recording of the song is included. All ages. (May)