Hello, Harvest Moon by Ralph Fletcher was a curious linguistic surprise for me.
“The crops have been gathered.” This sentence was so bulky that I looked up the past perfect tense online. What I found was the past perfect continuous tense, which is [had]+[been]+[present participle]. This would change the sentence to “The crops have been gathering.” , which makes no sense. For the crops to be harvested over a period of time in the past combined with the passive voice, one is backed up into a clunky corner.
The second line of the story is similar, “The pumpkins have been picked.” Then, the tense changes mid-paragraph: “The silos are filled to bursting…” The next paragraph shifts again: “But something is staring at the edge of the world.” Fletcher’s grammar throughout the story made it an awkward read for me.
And I didn’t like his imagery. The harvest moon climbing night stairs with silent slippers, didn’t make sense. Nor did I like the word “stain” to characterize the lovely moonlight that Kate Kiesler illustrated in her gorgeous paintings. His language bullied metaphors as in, “Birch trees shine as if they have been double dipped in moonlight.” I can’t remember the last time words of a picture book tripped over one another like they do for me in this story. I must assume other readers will enjoy the story more than I did.
