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Best friends Tortoise and Hare compete to see who will be first to reach the moon.

PreS-Gr 2-When Hare teases Tortoise for being a slowpoke, Tortoise challenges him to a race. Sound familiar? But this is a race to the moon and Hare takes off in "an aerodynamic hyperspaceship of the latest design" while Tortoise builds his own patchwork conveyance. As in the classic fable, Hare makes several stops along the way while Tortoise, in his plodding fashion, touches down on the moon just seconds before his pal. Then, "being best friends," they enjoy some super moon-jumping together. As the concluding note points out, Moroccan and modern art inspired the illustrations. Geometric shapes (such as the circular space-bubble helmets and the exaggerated triangularity of Hare's spaceship), strong black outlines, and repeating patterns characterize the artwork. The blue, green, and black backgrounds of sky, earth, and space respectively enhance the retro palette. The text is direct and includes satisfying rocket noises and spiffy vocabulary such as "Woo-hoo, eat my dust!" However, while it is comforting to know that the competitors remain friends, the moon-hopping conclusion falls a bit flat. A polar opposite to Helen Ward's classic and elegant The Hare and the Tortoise (Millbrook, 1999), this quirky version might serve as an interesting, though not essential, addition to collections of this popular fable.-Carol Ann Wilson, Westfield Memorial Library, NJ Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.