Janet Ruth Heller

How the Moon Regained Her Shape Janet Ruth Heller Reprint edition

How the Moon Regained Her Shape is a fiction picture book for children.  Janet Ruth Heller has written a legend influenced by Native American folktales that explains why the moon changes shape and helps children deal with bullies. The sun insults the moon, and the moon feels so badly hurt that she shrinks and leaves the sky. The moon turns to her comet friend and her many friends on earth to comfort her. Her friends include rabbits and Native Americans. Then she regains her full shape, happiness, and self-esteem, and she returns to her orbit. An educational appendix gives advice about bullying, scientific information about the moon, and ideas for related activities for children. 

This book has won four national awards for its lyrical writing and its wonderful artwork. Illustrator Ben Hodson won a Benjamin Franklin Award for this book's artwork in 2007. How the Moon Regained Her Shape also won a Book Sense Pick (2006), a Children's Choices award (2007), and a Gold Medal in the Moonbeam Children's Book Awards (2007).  The book was also a finalist for the Oregon Reading Association's 2009 Patricia Gallagher Picture Book Award.

Children will learn from this book 1) that they need to tell friends and adults when bullying occurs, 2) that a bully's insults are seldom true, 3) that children will recover from abuse, and 4) that we can be friends with people who are different from us. Bullying thrives in secrecy, and most kids feel intimidated by abuse. Adults will learn that many children need the help and advice of friends and adults to stop bullying and to recover from the loss of trust and self-esteem that such harassment causes.