BIG BUNNY

It’s hard to come up with a new and meaningful story about the Easter Bunny, but this thoughtful, understated book with intriguing, minimalist illustrations provides both an interesting Easter Bunny tale and a quiet message about helping someone who is different. In this story, there are many rabbits that paint eggs, weave baskets and deliver the treats on Easter. Most of the rabbits are the standard small size, but one rabbit inexplicably grows to a huge size, larger than a house. She is too big to help with the eggs and baskets, so she sadly goes away. The little bunnies bring her back and work together to weave a huge basket with a belt for Big Bunny. On Easter all the little bunnies ride inside the huge basket with the filled Easter baskets as Big Bunny bounds all over the world to make deliveries. One concluding page shows several children of different races enjoying their baskets, and the final page shows the little bunnies curled up asleep against Big Bunny, tired after their marathon delivery session. The unusual illustrations use simple, stylized shapes against white backgrounds with bold colors and a minimum of detail. The style is suggestive of Southwestern Native American art with flattened perspective and geometric lines. This unpretentious effort by a mother-and-daughter team is quietly powerful and can be enjoyed at any time of year. (Picture book. 3-6)