The Man in the Moone

The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwin

According to Wikipedia, the original title was The Man in the Moone or A Discourse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo Gonsales. That is quite a mouthful. The book is a very early utopian science fiction. A man runs into trouble in Spain and goes to another land. After various adventures he is on a remote island, and communicating with a bird. He learns to travel on it and eventually escapes a conflict by going up to the moon. On the moon, he encounters a civilization. Their civilization is a Utopian version of earth civilization. Life on the moon is similar to earth, but they speak an odd language see earth in the sky somewhat like we see the moon and food is a bit different. They also have some special "magic stones" with various properties. He later goes back to earth with some of these and lands in China.  Today, the science feels all out of whack. However, back in these days, it must feel plausible. If you can sail around the world to find strange but human civilizations, why not fly on a bird to see the same on the moon? The book is fairly short and an interesting mixture of exploration and science fiction.