Book Review: No One Walks On My Father's Moon by Chara M Curtis

I read this book which Beth borrowed from the library, and it's so touching and so mind-opening that I must share it with you.

It's about a Turkish boy who runs home excitedly after school one day to tell his father that the Americans have sent a man to the moon. The boy's father, who reads only the Quran because that is the only source of wisdom and truth he trusts - is furious and accuses his son of lying, tells him he has sinned, and gives him a ferocious beating when he refuses to apologize and retract his words. Hurt, angry and confused, the boy seeks answers from his teacher, and is told "in truth is the many in one". By the end of the book, the boy realizes that his father is just as entitled to his own view and they are reconciled.

It's a story about the inter-generation gap, about faith, about different ways of seeing the same thing. Most of all, it teaches respect for others' views. Schools could use a book like this to teach students acceptance, tolerance and respect for one another.

My favourite part is how the boy's teacher handles the situation when the boy returns to school after a few days and the teacher finds out what happened to him.

The teacher looked with love into the boy's tear-filled eyes. "I am sorry for your pain," he said.

When the boy asks, "Teacher, is it possible there is more than one moon?", the teacher takes the time to give a considered reply.

His teacher was surprised to hear such a question. Surely the answer was obvious. Yet he had never considered the question before, so he placed it in his heart and bowed his head. Soon a smile of gratitude came upon his lips, and he answered the boy saying:

"There is only one moon that revolves around this Earth, yet it is a different moon for each one that sees it.

One who never cares to look up into the night sky will never see it. For this one the moon does not exist.

One who gazes upon its beauty only when it is full will know the moon only as a silvery disk.

Another might view its splendor only as it rises during the harvest. For this one the moon is an immense golden ball.

Yet another might study the moon with a telescope through all its phases, in shadow and in light. For this one it is mountains, craters and valleys, and oceans that flow with moondust.

The answer to your question is both yes and no, for in truth is the many in one."

Some thoughts:

The teacher has a central role in the development of a school-going child. If he is lacking in empathy and compassion, he might break the child's spirit and stifle his eagerness to learn. If he underestimates the spiritual hunger of the child who is earnestly seeking, he might give an unhelpful answer and inadvertently lead him astray. If he allows himself to become jaded and to assume that all he knows is all there is to know, he deprives himself of a new way of looking at life, and the child is deprived of a satisfactory answer.

No wonder the New Testament says teachers are to be held to a higher standard than other workers.