Amaya, the dog who followed the moon to find his family: a story of friendship, trust and sacrifice

«Winter had arrived in the mountains. The large river flowed deep and crystal clear. Among all the trees, only the pines still wore their lucid and dark needles ». For the first time aMaya, a small dog, finds herself wandering in the cold in search of her parents. Attached to the forest by a pack of wolves, she is saved by one of them, an elderly person who has now moved away from the group, who becomes a travel companion and wise guidance in finding his family, observing the mother’s advice who reminded her to her « Follow the moon with all my heart. » After the bestseller « Great Panda and little dragon »the journey through the seasons of two inseparable friends, James Norbury Back with a new adventure: « The dog who followed the moon » (Rizzoli Editore). A story of friendship and trust between two different animal species that, day and night, face evidence and obstacles, find refuge from the cold in a cave and face the experiences that life reserves. An illustrated fairy tale that tells the importance of sacrifice themselves to others, to welcome challenges and changes, to be resilient and perseverse, But also willing to change your goals when you lose the way, as happens to the wolf who decides to save Ee protecting a creature in difficulty – even by putting itself against their pack – just because it seems to him « the right thing to do ». Without ever losing hope, even when her young friend thinks that research is useless and dangerous.

« The most beautiful trips are the ones we do with the others», Remember the wolf. And the roads should not only be followed or accepted, but « welcomed, regardless of the difficulties » that life places, from the moonlight that we do not always see or from the results that are often out of our control and do not always come in the times we would like, as the two protagonists a cat encountered along the way, clarifying the value of the wait. After all, as the wolf teaches in the final, before the forces abandon him, hearing « the last time the sore legs and the cold caress of a snowflake on the nose », but sure to have left to Amaya all the tools to continue his journey and research (and to do it for him too), « most of our life consists in traveling the journey, and arrival is only a small part of the whole trip. We have to do our best to enjoy every part of our adventure. Maybe we will never arrive where we want, and wouldn’t it be sad if we hadn’t even enjoyed the way? ». It is therefore necessary to also in our life, Return to slow down and look around: « Imagine that the instant present is precisely the destination you have chosen, and not just any moment during the journey. » We must trust, even when labors and patience are not rewarded. Because meaning is love. That love that has been given to her and that Amaya finds herself gathering, becoming herself a guide for a kitten who has lost the way home.

« The dog who followed the moon, » recalls the author in the afterword, is a « necessary » book, which He digs deep into his life, between experiences (beautiful and ugly) that allow us to shape ourselves. A curiosity? While writing page 127, Norbury received a message from a neighbor who informed him that his cat Philip had been invested and found himself asking himself as the ideas treated in the book, as the concept of death, they could apply to him firsthand, in the face of that pain. «Nobody can remove the pain of a loss, but I sincerely hope that if you happen to suffer one, this book can offer you a little consolation. Doing something with all my heart makes it full of meaning what it seems not to have it, « he concludes.