I'm not going to say too much about Moonrise Kingdom, because, well, it has been so spectacularly well-reviewed and universally loved that my own ambivalent feelings seem completely irrelevant. The tidiest way I can explain the way I feel is: the film was sometimes too much of a good thing, if that makes sense. And that's not the worse problem to have.
One of these numberless good things, among dozens (hundreds?) of special objects and visual wonders Wes Anderson crowded into the movie, are these wonderful imaginary books: six strange, funny fantasy/sci-fi library books that Suzy, the bandit-y heroine, lugs around in her suitcase. With plastic sleeves protecting the winsome, naive covers he commissioned from various illustrators, the books sport titles like the Francine Odysseys and (my personal favorite) The Return of Auntie Lorraine. And they're not just for looks - Suzy reads from the books throughout the movie, and now there are animated short films to accompany each story.
Even though they are just one small bit of his generous, effusive approach to creating films and creating words, they were my favorite thing in the movie. They remind me of books I lugged home from my own elementary school library (and maybe you did, too?) but just a little different. Like Moonrise Kingdom itself, they bear a passing resemblance to something real, but they are utterly unreal - pasted together from half-memories and nostalgia and scraps of paper or felt somewhere in the heart of its creator, a place that will never stop trying to build a new world - prettier and more clever than the real one - from the ground up.
