The Great Moon Hoax by Stephen Krensky

In 1833 the New York Sun, a new publication used newsboys to sell it's newspapers on the street.  To entice people to buy their paper the headlines and stories needed to be interesting.  And so in 1835 when the paper began to write about what a far away astronomer was seeing on the moon through his telescope, lots of papers were sold.  Jake and Charlie are two of these boys and it's their story we hear.  Homeless and without family they sell papers to feed themselves and on a big sales day spend the night in a boardinghouse.  Illustrations by Josee Bisaillon depict among other creatures man-bats and moon beavers.  When Jack and Charlie learn it was all a hoax they're not upset.  Instead Jake thinks about writing his own stories one day.  Krensky has made this historical fiction book accessible for young readers and even though the boys live in poverty, hope for them shines bright.  Readers will look at the moon through new eyes.  Read as an ebook arc courtesy of Carolrhoda via Netgalley.