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Book Review

“If I Were The Moon” by Jesse Terry, Jacqueline East (Illustrator) [Book Review]

Awash with gorgeous watercolour illustrations, fanciful scenes and heartfelt words, this children’s book is destined to become a fixture by bedsides in years to come.

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Artwork for the book “If I Were The Moon” by Jesse Terry

Today we dive into the children’s book If I Were The Moon, out via Schiffer Publishing. There are fewer requirements more consequential than writing and illustrating when it comes to kids’ stories. Unless you can illustrate your own stories with masterful ease like Sendak or Seuss, as a writer, you need someone who can translate your vision and make it transcend the words. So, it’s especially vital, as a musician getting one of your songs turned into a children’s book, to get an artist who can not just convey the essence of the words but the spirit of the music as well.

Jesse Terry’s good fortune was being connected with Jacqueline East, one of the most wholesome, positive illustrators in the game today. Watercolours are magnificently hard to pull off, especially with clean lines, and East pairs this mastery with depictions of children, animals, and nature that are at once whimsical and magical.

It’s this balance between whimsy and fantasy that makes East’s rendition of Terry’s heartfelt ballad “If I Were The Moon” so wonderful. Moving from earth to moon and back again is a tried-and-true theme, but East’s incorporation of animals and nature give the settings and mood a dreamlike, ethereal quality. The result is at once both wholesome and positive, and along with the natural journey it takes towards sleep, it’s a powerful soporific.

It also happens to pair well with the original song itself. The pacing of the pages and words lend themselves to Terry’s original, touching piece. As well, the imagined images work so well with the tune that it feels as though it was deliberately written with pictures in mind. This, to me, is the sign of a perfect synthesis of two very talented creatives. Awash with gorgeous watercolour illustrations, fanciful scenes and heartfelt words, this children’s book is destined to become a fixture by bedsides in years to come.

Author: Jesse Terry
Illustrator: Jacqueline East
Publisher: Schiffer Publishing
Release Date: March 28, 2023
Format/Length: Hardcover, 32 pages
ISBN: 9780764365706
ISBN-13:  978-0764365706

Director of Communications @ V13. Lance Marwood is a music and entertainment writer who has been featured in both digital and print publications, including a foreword for the book "Toronto DIY: (2008-2013)" and The Continuist. He has been creating and coordinating content for V13 since 2015 (back when it was PureGrainAudio); before that he wrote and hosted a radio and online series called The Hard Stuff , featuring interviews with bands and insight into the Toronto DIY and wider hardcore punk scene. He has performed in bands and played shows alongside acts such as Expectorated Sequence, S.H.I.T., and Full of Hell.

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