MISSING RABBIT

It is very tempting to dodge the issue raised here—just where one does belong in a divorced family of two households—simply because it is so baldly put. There is no way to gain on the matter with any less than mortal resolve, no angled approach, and no exercise of the imagination. Young Kara and Rabbit, her stuffed friend, go everywhere together: to Dad’s, then Mom’s, then Dad’s again, then Mom’s. When leaving Dad’s one day, Rabbit whispers to Kara, “Where do I live?” Kara decides to have Rabbit stay at Dad’s. But then at Mom’s, she misses Rabbit too much, and Dad ferries Rabbit over. Then the same happens at Mom’s: Rabbit stays, but soon gets a lift to Dad’s. Both homes are utterly protective and mutually respectful and welcoming, so that when Rabbit springs the inevitable—“Were do you live?”—on Kara, she can safely ask her parents. They reply that she lives sometimes with Mom, sometimes with Dad, and always in their hearts. Any child who can relate to this story probably hasn’t got any issues regarding belonging in the first place. And such a cotton-soft world of divorce will yield no dividends for kids in more ragged emotional terrain. Would that the situation be so easily resolved. Moore’s (Alice and Greta’s Color Magic, not reviewed, etc.) party-colored watercolors are the visual equivalent to Schotter’s (F Is for Freedom, 2000, etc.) sugarcoated universe. (Picture book. 4-6)