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Battina and the Moon is a magical, fantastical tale of night and day, parents and children and the search for identity.

Tina Stickler wants to be a bat, but her parents just want her to be a normal little girl. Her parents, Mr and Mrs Stickler, play life by the rules but Tina sleeps upside down in her wardrobe, dreams of eating flies and wants to swoop through the night sky while everyone else is fast asleep. One morning, as Tina gets ready for bed, Mr and Mrs Stickler decide enough is enough and tell her the bat games must stop or else. All alone, Tina shares her theory about a terrible mix up at the hospital when a human baby and a bat baby were given to the wrong parents and how hard it is to live by someone else’s rules.

All at once, she hears a knocking from inside her wardrobe and the Moon steps out, a gorgeous bald-headed creature in beautiful garments. The Moon has come to claim Tina as one of her own children of the night and tells her that her real name is Battina. Delighted Battina the Bat bounces on her bed with the Moon and flies out of her bedroom window to an adventure amongst the stars.

The Moon takes Battina to her home on Moonbase and together with Major, the sparkling Great Star Bear, they plan the best party in the universe, where stars, planets, comets, asteroids, astronauts and a jumping cow will welcome Battina to her new life. Party games and entertainments are planned, but as Battina reveals she can’t really fly and the Moon shows a less than realistic attitude to bringing up a child, the two begin to wonder if they really belong together. When Battina finds her baby blanket amongst the Moon’s collection of discarded memories, she begins to think about her parents back on earth. Comforting a tearful Moon, distraught because no one has come to her party, Battina points out that you have to send invitations if you want people to come and suddenly realises that not all rules are bad rules. She confesses her homesickness to the Moon, who sadly allows her to return home.

Battina leaves Moonbase like an exploding rocket and touches down back in her bedroom, where her parents are lost and lonely without her. However, they still don’t understand why Battina wants to be a bat and refuse to allow her to have a midnight bat party. Sadly Battina takes off her bat costume, but when her parents discover gifts from the Moon’s memory collection, they remember the games they used to play as children and admit their real reason for not coming to the party is that they’re afraid of the dark. Battina encourages them to come to her party in the tiara and shaggy rug they played with as children. At first embarrassed about their childhood fantasies, they soon throw off their inhibitions and come to the party as a fairy princess and a shaggy, dirty bear. The Moon descends into Battina’s bedroom and the best party in the universe takes place after all.

Richard Hurford - Writer

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