Little Sister Rabbit has some freedom, but she’s not ready for total independence.
She sets out purposefully and without her older brother, walking through the countryside, messing around in puddles, making boats to float on the river, and skipping stones on the lake. By the time she starts doing cartwheels, she’s been gone several hours and gets “so dizzy that she didn’t know where she was.” She tries to find her home but finds other animals’ instead. She sees a group of older rabbits, one in a wheelchair, studiously playing chess. In another burrow, she meets Mr. Badger, “an old and very grand gentleman.” Her third visit is to a foxes’ den, but at least these dangerous animals are sleeping peacefully (although they are “growling in their dreams”). This last encounter is very scary. But when she really needs him, who should be calling “Little Sister Rabbit!” but Big Brother. “He reached for her paw, and told her, in a gentle and comforting kind of way, that she must be more careful.” This language is indicative of the calmly sweet character of the text. The delicately evocative illustrations, in a quiet green, brown, and gold palette, feature amusing little touches, such as the frogs who watch the young rabbit as she skims her stone. This import from Sweden via Scotland, originally published in 1987, is joined by a companion of similar vintage, Little Sister Rabbit and the Fox.
Whether read during the day or at bedtime, this consoling story of adventure, getting lost, and sibling rescue will create good feelings. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78250-377-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Even more alliterative hanky-panky from the creators of The Wonky Donkey (2010).
Operating on the principle (valid, here) that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, Smith and Cowley give their wildly popular Wonky Donkey a daughter—who, being “cute and small,” was a “dinky donkey”; having “beautiful long eyelashes” she was in consequence a “blinky dinky donkey”; and so on…and on…and on until the cumulative chorus sails past silly and ludicrous to irresistibly hysterical: “She was a stinky funky plinky-plonky winky-tinky,” etc. The repeating “Hee Haw!” chorus hardly suggests what any audience’s escalating response will be. In the illustrations the daughter sports her parent’s big, shiny eyes and winsome grin while posing in a multicolored mohawk next to a rustic boombox (“She was a punky blinky”), painting her hooves pink, crossing her rear legs to signal a need to pee (“winky-tinky inky-pinky”), demonstrating her smelliness with the help of a histrionic hummingbird, and finally cozying up to her proud, evidently single parent (there’s no sign of another) for a closing cuddle.
Should be packaged with an oxygen supply, as it will incontestably elicit uncontrollable gales of giggles. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-60083-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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A sonorous, soporific invitation to join woodland creatures in bedding down for the night.
As in her Moon Babies, illustrated by Amy Hevron (2019), Jameson displays a rare gift for harmonious language and rhyme. She leads off with a bear: “Come home, Big Paws. / Berry picker / Honey trickster / Shadows deepen in the glen. / Lumber back inside your den.” Continuing in the same pattern, she urges a moose (“Velvet Nose”), a deer (“Tiny Hooves”), and a succession of ever smaller creatures to find their nooks and nests as twilight deepens in Boutavant’s woodsy, autumnal scenes and snow begins to drift down. Through each of those scenes quietly walks an alert White child (accompanied by an unusually self-controlled pooch), peering through branches or over rocks at the animals in the foregrounds and sketching them in a notebook. The observer’s turn comes round at last, as a bearded parent beckons: “This way, Small Boots. / Brave trailblazer / Bright stargazer / Cabin’s toasty. Blanket’s soft. / Snuggle deep in sleeping loft.” The animals go unnamed, leaving it to younger listeners to identify each one from the pictures…if they can do so before the verses’ murmurous tempo closes their eyes.
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7063-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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