To the Moon and Back

 

Bishop Alemany High School art teacher Mr. Emmanuel Crespo has published a children's book entitled "To the Moon and Back" inspired by his daughter Malia. “My daughter Malia had a fascination with the moon. She started to notice and started to look for it, and I imagined her having a conversation with the moon”, says Mr. Crespo. The book focuses on how children’s imagination can go beyond their wildest dreams. He was interested in how parents told stories to their children and how most parents would often show the images and explain what is going on in the scene. “After reading a short two or three sentenced passage, I spend most of my time pointing out things in the image and helping her notice all the important parts in the image and illustrations", adds Mr. Crespo.

 

Once he established it was about Malia's journey to the moon, Mr. Crespo created the plot and imagined the scenes which he sketched and then painted. He recollects, "Once I had an idea of what it was going to be about, the story pretty much wrote itself”. Regarding his creative process, Mr. Crespo says, “My painting practice consists of taking images and objects and putting them together in a scene to suggest a narrative”.

Since this is his first publication, Mr. Crespo says “It was very exciting to see it all come together”. Although he is unsure if he would like to create more stories in the future, this experience has definitely left an impact on him:  “I am still processing the fact that it exists and that I actually took it this far”.