Booklist calls Matthew Burgess’s IF THE MOON “a reflective and whimsical stunner sure to reframe and soothe bedtime anxieties” in starred review

★ If the Moon by Matthew Burgess, illus. by Matthew Forsythe

Aug. 2026. 40p. Sourcebooks/Stonefruit Studio, $19.99 (9781464244049). PreS–Gr. 1

“On the cusp of sleep, when nighttime feels particularly daunting, a string of questions ushers a child through a fantastical world of possibilities in this pensive and soothing bedtime selection. “If can be a dark room / where worries swell and rise . . .” for a child cowering in bed beneath a tightly clutched quilt. Then, with a page turn and a well-placed conjunction (“Or”), everything changes. Patchwork covers transform into a colorful, rippling pool, and the child sinks in with a smile. Another page turn, and the child is splashing in deep water: “if can be a raft. / You climb aboard / and drift.” And away we go! The text turns especially lyrical as the child approaches sleep, and philosophical questions invite wonder and curiosity. “If you were a cluster of stars in a faraway galaxy, / what shape would people see and name?” Ebullient, softly textured illustrations set in generous white spaces create immersive and wildly varied worlds, and the original quilt squares prove Easter eggs for each of the child’s imaginative transformations, including a fish in a kaleidoscopic school and “a hummingbird zipping around a garden,” the shape-shifting recalling Margaret Wise Brown’s classic The Runaway Bunny, or Shawn Harris’ Let’s Be Bees (2025). With its playful exuberance balancing peaceful contemplation, this is a reflective and whimsical stunner sure to reframe and soothe bedtime anxieties.”

— Kit Ballenger