Full Moon and Star

The team behind City I Love turns from love of place to love of friends in a story structured in three acts. After Katie and Kyle each write a play about friendship (Kyle's observes that two halves of the moon make one whole, while Katie's is about a star who longs to twinkle with her friend), they collaborate on the play that gives the book its title%E2%80%94it's the best of the three, they believe. "Do you know why I love it best?" Katie asks. "Why?" "Because we did it together," she says. "We should always do things together." "I agree," Kyle says. Their plays are the small-scale, living room productions most kids and parents alike will recognize (each is no more than a couple of lines long). But Hall imagines them produced in real theaters in front of glamorously attired adults; his jaunty, New Yorker cartoon%E2%80%93style artwork greatly tempers the story's more cloying notes. While older children may be impatient with the pair's unrelenting cheer, the very young will appreciate the absence of tension. Ages 3%E2%80%937. (Aug.)