When her mother goes out to visit Mrs. Hen one night, Little Goose disobeys her instructions, getting out of bed and running down to the pond for a swim. When that celestial body is hidden by a fox-shaped cloud, the goslings wakes the farmer, thinking the moon has been eaten. Told to go to bed, Little Goose instead stays up, and seeing the moon reflected in the pond, thinks that it has fallen into the water. Disturbing the farmer once again, she is told in no uncertain terms to cease and desist. So it is that, when a real fox takes her, there is no aid for the Little Goose, and she must find a way to trick her vulpine enemy and escape his clutches...

An enjoyable story from Edna Mitchell Preston is paired with delightfully charming artwork from illustrator Barbara Cooney in Squawk to the Moon, Little Goose. The text has an engaging rhythm to it, with just enough repetition to feel slightly song-like, and the conclusion will give young readers and listeners the satisfaction of seeing the trickster tricked. Little Goose's stratagem reminded me a bit of the Aesopic fable of The Fox, The Moon, and the River, in which the vulpine character imagines the moon's reflection in a river is a cheese, causing her to attempt to drink the river dry in order to get to it. It's much more common in folklore however, to have the fox trick another (usually a wolf) into believing that the moon's reflection is a cheese, and there is an episode to that effect in the French Reynardian tradition. Recommended to any picture-book readers who enjoy folkloric-feeling tales, and to fans of Barbara Cooney's artwork. ( )