What a magical, perfect picture book. Alison Lester has done it again and this must be her most tender and lyrical. Part poem, part lullaby it celebrates the natural world and a growing baby’s place in it. Her artwork is deceptively simple; clear colours and clean outlines create seemingly ‘flat’ children and animals who are alive and self assured in their inherited natural world. Beaches, farms, bushland, family homes and gardens are all the rightful habitats of Lester’s children and Kissed by the Moon tells the story of a loved baby learning to belong.

From the rich, grey-blue endpapers of quiet trees by a night lake, to the gentle, moonlit sleeping babies on the first and last pages and each of the lovingly detailed pictures of the baby’s year throughout, everything is so right. I don’t know how else to express the wonder of it. But I defy anyone to pick up this book and try not to think of a baby to whom it should be given – every baby’s life will be enriched by it.