Animals Asia was thrilled when Laura Godwin, editor at Henry Holt Young Readers/Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, approached us about doing a children’s book to highlight the plight of our beloved moon bears.
Laura quickly put her plan into action, contracting celebrated children’s author Brenda Z Guiberson and Caldecott award winning illustrator Ed Young to create "Moon Bear".
This beautiful book uses gentle prose and stunning imagery to take the young reader through a year in the life of a moon bear and ends with a discussion of Animals Asia’s Moon Bear Rescue program featuring real photos of some of our bears. At a recent bookseller’s convention dinner it was remarked thatMoon Bear could be the hot children’s book of the year and the rousing endorsements of early reviews seem to bear that statement out.
Alice and Morgan from the US office attend an independent booksellers dinner honoring author Brenda and illustrator Ed.
In addition to putting this project together, Laura also turned the staff at Macmillan into Team Moon Bear with everyone focused on ways to spread the word about our work and raise funds to support the bears.
The team has launched a unique fundraising program called Moon Bear Bucks where donations from children around the world will be put towards the naming of a future rescued bear. “Mac” bear will be living representation of the beautiful bears highlighted in the pages of Moon Bear.
Our hats are off to Laura, Brenda, Ed, Kathryn, Karen, Liz, Noa and all the team at Macmillan! Thank you all so much for the compassion and creativity that has gone into developing this absolutely gorgeous book.
For information on how to order Moon Bear or how to make a donation to the Moon Bear Bucks campaign click here.
Laura Godwin, Animals Asia US Director Alice, Jill and Ed Young in New York.
Ed Young in his NY studio working on some of the beautiful illustrations for “Moon Bear”.
