Additional information
by Sophie Sheppard (Author), Sophie Sheppard (Illustrator)
Sophie Sheppard's The Moon's Tear: A Desert Night's Dream follows Raven in his journey to find a companion for the Moon, who is traveling alone across the empty night sky. Enlisting Child for help, Raven must travel with his friend high into the mountains to retrieve a precious gift from the belly of a trout and fill the night with light. Quiet and dreamlike, Sheppard's illustrations perfectly compliment a tale of loneliness and how it is conquered by friendship. The Moon's Tear is a contemporary legend that will delight and entertain anyone with the courage to dream.
Northern Nevada, a landscape reflected in much of The Moon's Tear, is home to the Massacre Rim Dark Skies Sanctuary. One of only fourteen sites designated as IDA International Dark Sky Sanctuaries in the entire world, Massacre Rim Dark Skies Sanctuary is a "land that has an exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights and a nocturnal environment that is protected [and located] in a very remote location with few (if any) nearby threats to the quality of its dark night skies" (darksky.org).
Author Biography
A third generation painter, Sophie Sheppard lives and works in the remote northwest corner of the Great Basin where the distances are vast and the silences are deep. Her paintings and writing are place-based in this land where she, her husband, Lynn Nardella, and three generations of their family practice regenerative agriculture and put carbon back in the soil where it belongs. This story is based on a dream she had while sleeping under clear desert night skies.
