The Tugboat and the Silver Moon

When strong winds cause a cargo ship to get stuck sideways in a canal, neither protagonist Tug nor hardworking dredgers and diggers can get her free. But the silver moon’s “dance with the earth and the sun raised the tides that help ships,” and her orbit eventually moves her into a position where she’s “the fullest and closest and strongest she could possibly be,” Hamilton writes. Now a supermoon, “she pulled the sea up in a mighty tide. A KING TIDE!” that propels the cargo ship out of the sand. Gott’s digitally rendered illustrations present a fully anthropomorphized toylike world: puffy-cheeked clouds create the wind, the poor cargo ship sheds anxious tears (“Ships float. That’s what we’re supposed to do”), and the moon is concerned but confident—the very picture of a benevolent force. An afterword explains the science behind the story. Ages 3–7. (July)