Moon Rabbit
A couple months ago I joined a virtual one-book read aloud with the school that my grandchildren attend. I was assigned a chapter in Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon part of a trilogy. Minli hears her father’s stories of the Jade Dragon and the Old Man of the Moon and sets off to somehow find good fortune for her family. She meets magical characters on her quest. Read all 3 companion books.
In a discussion, I brought up the common Chinese theme of a rabbit in the face of the moon. If you look just right (and squint) you can perhaps see the shape of a rabbit on the moon’s dark markings. This rabbit is said to be the companion of the moon goddess Chang’e, making mooncakes/rice cakes for her. Chang’e is used as the name for the Chinese robotic spacecraft missions to the moon. Even the Chinese lunar rover in 2013 was named Yutu after the Jade Rabbit. All appropriate! I see rabbit-moon pictures in many books. Even in paintings discreetly hanging on walls in drawings.
The Korean and Japanese rabbit is pounding ingredients for mochi or other rice cakes. Indigenous people in North and Central America have many moon legends. The rabbit is the 4th animal in the Chinese zodiac – the luckiest animal – symbolizing ‘mercy, elegance, beauty’.
The story of Luna and the Moon Rabbit (by Camille Whitcher) all started with Grandma looking at the moon and telling Luna that the moon rabbit she sees is pounding rice cakes and maybe if Luna put out a cake for him, he would come to visit her. He came and off they went in a nighttime dream adventure ending with the rabbit bringing Luna back to her bed. She hoped he would come again. This rabbit is loving. Grandma and Luna are loving. You can feel the softness of the story through the dreamy art. A toy white rabbit would be a nice companion to snuggle. And eating a mooncake as snack.