Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

10.21.2016
FOR THE WEEKEND, share this fall themed title with your child! 

Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is appropriate for children of all ages.

Summary:
Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival from author and illustrator Grace Lin tells the story of a family’s celebration of the thanksgiving holiday for Chinese and many Asian peoples, the Moon Festival. Each member of the family lends a hand as they prepare a moonlit picnic with mooncakes, pomelos, cups of tea, and colorful lanterns. And everyone sends thanks and a secret wish up to the moon.

Practice this Comprehension Strategy-Sequencing:
Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival is an excellent story to practice sequencing. Ask your child questions as you read to help solidify their interest in the story. Once you’ve finished reading, ask your child to tell you the order that events unfolded throughout the book. Did they set out the mooncakes before driving to their picnic? Did they make a wish to the moon after setting up the honoring table? By recalling the order that the events happened, your child will be furthering their connection to the text and deepening their engagement with the story.

Do this with your child:
The family in Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival prepares a wonderful midnight picnic to celebrate the Moon Festival. They make treats and decorations such as mooncakes and lanterns. You can make these too! Click here for a mooncake recipe and here for a link to a lantern craft.


If you’re interested in sharing Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival with your child you can find it from Knopf Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House, here. Please like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

Related Posts

05.08.2026 From the CEO

Three Years, Real Growth: Lessons from Our 2023–2025 Strategic Plan

By Michelle Torgerson, President and CEO, Raising a Reader  Over the past three years, we asked a bold question: What does it take to build a sustainable, data-driven, equity-centered national organization—while expanding impact for children and families?  In 2023, we launched our first strategic plan as a fully independent nonprofit. As we closed that chapter and reflect, I’m proud of what we built, and ...

Read More
04.14.2026 Featured

Beyond the Classroom: Why the Raising a Reader Classic Red Book Bag Program is the Missing Piece in Your Science of Reading Strategy 

Districts across the country are making significant investments in the Science of Reading. From adopting high-quality Tier 1 curricula to intensive teacher training in phonics and phonemic awareness, the focus on the “word recognition” side of the literacy equation has never been stronger.  But as every educator knows, decoding is only half the battle. According to the Simple View of Reading, literacy is ...

Read More