Moon Man (Tomi Ungerer)

In this beautifully illustrated and delightfully quirky tale by one of the world's best-loved and acclaimed storytellers, the Man in the Moon looks down on the happy, dancing people on Earth every night, wishing he could join them. He hitches a ride on a passing comet and crash-lands on Earth, where he quickly finds himself thrown into jail by people who take him for an invader, rather than a friendly visitor. The Moon Man, however, has a most unusual – but perfectly logical – means of escape, and sets out to make his way back home.

With gentle satire, Ungerer pokes fun at self-important adults who are afraid of anything or anyone unfamiliar and reminds us that there is indeed no place like home. On its first publication in the US in 1967, at the height of the Space Race, Moon Man won the Book Week prize for books for children aged 4–8, and Maurice Sendak described it in Book Week as 'Easily one of the best picture books in recent years' Since then, it has been translated into 12 languages.