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Sun Moon Star

kurt vonnegut jr. ivan chermayeff

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When the Creator of the universe came to Earth, It resolved to be born a male human infant, and this is what It saw when It opened Its eyes.

62 pages, cloth

First published January 1,1980

This edition

Format
62 pages, cloth
Published
January 1, 1980 by Harper \u0026 Row
ISBN
9780060263195
ASIN
0060263199
Language
English

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About the author

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kurt vonnegut jr.

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Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 75 votes)
5 stars
22(29%)
4 stars
29(39%)
3 stars
24(32%)
2 stars
0(0%)
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75 reviews All reviews
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jerrybratle
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Found this by happy chance in the library. It's a really different and poetic look at the Nativity from the point of view of the baby Jesus, who struggles to make sense of the scene around him with His now-imperfect human eyes. A fascinating conceit, beautiful and thoughtful.
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infinite_Fiend
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Un cuento sobre la Natividad, específicamente sobre lo primero que ven los ojitos del bebé que acaba de nacer. Las imágenes son sencillas y todo gira alrededor de una estrella, luna y sol. Parece ser que las imágenes fueron primero y que Kurt escribió la historia con base a eso y le quedó bastante bien. Es tierna, simple y muy humana.
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Honesty
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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So good! The nativity story told from Jesus' POV, complete with his fuzzy newborn eyesight. I love how incarnational it is.
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red_888
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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RIP Kurt Vonnegut, you would have loved Tumblr.

On a serious note: This was beautiful. Who would have known Vonnegut wrote a children's book and that it'd be so beautiful? I'd love to own this physically one day. It's so tender, but at the same time, the illustrations are so genius in tandem with the story beside it. His mind really works in such wonderful ways. This was gentle but so Vonnegut. Love love love.
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Chinomi-san
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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A charming, creative retelling of the Christ child's birth. Chermayeff created a series of pictures before Vonnegut provided the story. As with his novels, Vonnegut's charm and humanity is on full display in this story for all ages.
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Konobae
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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This was one of my absolute favorite "Christmas" books as a child, long before any of it made any sense to me at all, and continued to be even as I was able to grasp a bit of what it was all about as an older kid. I recently rediscovered my (dusty, drawn-on) copy and was so thrilled to share it with MY kids, and surprised to find within myself an almost pre-verbal memory of each page, each color.

Anyway! Just an anecdotal counterpoint to the many reviews suggesting it is neither appropriate for or interesting to children. Though to be fair my kids are not particularly or especially enamored (YET?)... but neither do they dislike it or find it dull.

I loved and love this book.
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Azure_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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In 2021, I've been re-reading all the Vonnegut. He is my favorite author and when I had read Vonnegut when I was younger, this was not widely available, if at all. I had never heard of this until this year. I checked out the book for free from Hoopla and read it on my iPad. Random thoughts initiate:

1. I guess this is a children's book, though it talks about the king ordering the death of all newborn male children. That would have scared my kid. It took about 20 minutes to read, I guess. It was a kind of charming tale about Baby Jesus being born and what he saw, or thought he saw, during his first day of being alive on earth.

2. I would say this is for Vonnegut completionists only. Definitely not essential. The art was pretty simple and basic - nothing special.

I gave it two stars as the least essential Vonnegut yet. I like stories about Jesus and I thought it was kind of charming, but didn't have a great pay off or anything.
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