Product Description

When Abel Grable returns home to his family, he is full of thrilling tales of his adventures in wild places. Tell us again! Tell us again! plead his little sons. So, sitting at his writing table under the apple tree, Abel writes down his stories, tales that will stay with his boys long after he is gone away again...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #301626 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

About the Author
Shirley Hughes was born and grew up in West Kirby, near Liverpool. She trained at Liverpool Art School and the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. She began her career as a freelance interpretive illustrator, but when her children were very young she turned her attention to writing and illustrating children's books. Her first book, Lucy and Tom's Day was published in 1960, and to date she has illustrated over 200 books.

Customer Reviews

CROCODILES & MOON MACHINES ---- FATHER & SON FANTASIES
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If your name was Abel Grable and your wife's name was Mabel you too would have to get away every now and then.

"Abel's Moon" is set sometime in the 1950's going by the clothes the characters wear. Abel has to leave his family and travel to find work. They are not a prosperous family, the front gate squeaks and the garden is overgrown. There is no TV or video games in this house. Instead they sit around the fire and tell stories. Somehow they look happy!

There are 3 children Adam, Noah and baby Ben, and of course Skipper the dog. The boys know how to entertain themselves, such as playing at being wild animals. Mabel and Ben love dancing to the music on the radio. When Abel is back home he tries to write up the stories of his travels but the noise from the family is too much. He has to go out into the garden to get some peace and quiet in order to work.

Abel's stories about his adventures are full of tales about monkey's swinging through trees, crocodiles in muddy swamps and travelling on riverboats to remote places.

Once again it was time for Abel to set out to find work. The boys missed their Dad very much.

The boys turn the old writing table that Dad had used out in the garden into a camp. They are sure they can hear monkeys in the trees. They then turn the table upside down to make a pretend boat. They paddled it through muddy crocodile infested swamps with only the moon to guide them.

Adam one day decided that the writing table could be turned into a moon machine with the addition of few planks of wood to make some propellers. Under the light of the full moon Adam looked out at the moon machine in his garden.

Adam had a remarkable and profound thought. " He knew that the moon was shining down on him, and Abel too. It shone down on all the people who loved each other and couldn't always be together, beaming down on each and every one, no matter how far away they were".

With his strong sense of imagination Adam planned that one night soon, he and Noah (and Skipper if he behaved himself) would take off in the moon machine, and drop in on Dad, wherever he was.

Soon Abel would be back home with his family. The boys would then tell Abel all about THEIR adventures.

You get the message that Abel's sons have just as strong sense of imagination as their father does. You guess his crocodile stories may be just as real as Adam's trips in his moon machine.

"Abel's Moon" is a delightful story. The illustrations capture the era and the atmosphere perfectly.