The Bunny Burrow Buyer's Book: A Tale of Rabbit Real Estate by Steve Light

-

How lucky can I be? Two new picture books from Steve Light we are just heading into the third month of 2016 and both are absolutely fantastic. Swap! is a fine story of a young friend and an old sea dog trading up. Starting with a button, the two manage to turn a rundown vessel into a ship shape, seafaring sensation. With The Bunny Burrow Buyer's Book: A Tale of Rabbit Real Estate, Light delivers a book with a smaller trim size but so much more on the inside. Every page has a hinged flap with a peephole cut into it, revealing the outside and inside of each of the potential homes Mr. and Mrs. Bunny have circled in the newspaper (the Daily Carrot classified section, which is an intriguing read on its own) endpapers that start the story.


Gregory and Petunia Bunny are looking for a new home. Their family is growing and they need a bigger burrow. Also, their neighbors, the fairies, are quite loud. The descriptions in the classifieds sound perfect on paper, but a visit to each dwelling proves less than perfect. A visit to each also reveals a different mythical or fairy tale creature, from Pegasus, an ogre and a dragon to a griffin and a sea monster. 

Unifying the book is a thick, black swath, rolling from page to page, serving as a path winding through the Bunny's neighborhood. Light's characteristic black and white illustrations, packed with details, are washed with bursts of a dusty pink in this book. In the very satisfying final two page spread, we see a beautiful oak tree with enormous acorns hanging from it. The gatefolds open to reveal the cozy new home that is just right for their family and filled with books, games, bunk beds and, of course, bunnies!

Source: Review Copy


Popular posts from this blog

Fox + Chick: The Sleepover and Other Stories by Sergio Ruzzier

-
Image
Fox + Chick : The Sleepover and Other Stories  by Sergio Ruzzier Review Copy from Chronicle Books Friends. Opposites. Inhabitants of a pastel-hued, water color world that is vaguely surreal, Fox and Chick are back for a third installment of their inviting, if curious, easy-to-read stories. In "The Sleepover," "The Hammer," and "The Surprise," Chick's odd logic is once again upending Fox's life. Happily, Fox responds with patience and even wisdom at times. To these unforgettable characters and luminous illustrations, Ruzzier brings a sublime simplicity that makes this series perfect for emerging readers, adding books with character and intelligence to the often dull world of beginning reader books. If you aren't familiar with this delightful duo, definitely check out my reviews of the first two books (links below) where I put the greatness of Ruzzier's work into historical ( Frog & Toad ) context. Then check out ALL of Ruzzier's p
Read more

Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala

-
Image
Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala Review Copy from Abrams Kids I picture-walked Be a Tree! three times before I actually read the words. Felicita Sala's illustrations for Maria Gianferrari's poetic text are mesmerizingly immersive and richly colorful within a palette of earth tones. Throughout the text, Gianferrari, who shares her inspiration for this book in the author's note ( Peter Wohleben's The Hidden Life of Trees ), gently maintains the human connection to trees and the connections (and communications) trees share with each other.  Be a Tree!  begins exuberantly, inviting the reader to "Be a tree! Stand tall. Stretch your branches to the sun. Let your roots curl, coil in the soil to ground you." From your spine/trunk to your skin/bark and your heart/pith, the words carry you inward and then zoom outward and up to the canopy and ultimately, the forest. "You are one of many trees," and our roots "twine with fung
Read more

Reading Levels: A Quick Guide to Determining if a Book Is Right for Your Reader

-
Image
While I wrote an article titled Reading Levels: How I Assign Reading Levels to Books, How the Publishers Do It and How You Can Help Your Reader Find the Right Book at the Right Time that discusses how reading levels are determined by professionals and amateurs like myself, there is more on this subject to discuss. Determining the reading level of a book from the children's section is never easy, mostly because there are several different standardized methods of determining reading levels. Add to this the fact that knowing their children's reading level is most often the only tool a parent is armed with when exploring the bookstore, library, website, etc, and the job becomes even more difficult. While I think that knowing a child's reading level is a very valuable tool if your child is reading below grade level, I think that it is a secondary consideration when finding books for children reading above, especially well above, grade level because, in most cases, content app
Read more