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
Did you like this book?
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
