Why So Sad, Brown Rabbit? (Picture Puffins) - Softcover

Cain, Sheridan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140568158 ISBN 13: 9780140568158

Publisher: Puffin, 2001

Synopsis

Brown Rabbit wants a family, but when three newborn ducklings think that he is their mother, he's not sure this is the right family for him.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Artist Kelly makes an assured debut with this British import featuring a bachelor bunny who longs for a family and inadvertently gets his wish. Brown Rabbit is droopy-eared over his plight: he must sit alone on the sidelines while the animal families enjoy their springtime frolic. After a brief, fruitless search for a wife, the rabbit discovers a trio of just-hatched ducklings. A poll of farmyard inhabitants fails to turn up the ducklings' mother: "What am I going to do?" Brown Rabbit asks his charges. "You're all alone like me." But when the orphans snuggle close, the rabbit's nurturing instincts are awakened; he soon embraces his role as a paterfamilias with gusto. With an economical but warm text, Cain (Look Out for the Big, Bad Fish?) keeps the story moving. She effectively conveys Brown Rabbit as a good-hearted if slightly prim gentleman (he says "Oh dear!" when perplexed and refers to his ducklings as "little fellows"). Combining a strong graphic sensibility with a confident ink line, Kelly's illustrations bubble with a sly wit and energy; the clean, almost decorative look of the characters and compositions is tempered with subtly textured colors of downy yellow, chestnut brown and cornflower blue. Here is an upbeat tale of a hare who makes a proud papa to a nontraditional family. Ages 3-7.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Cain's story of imprinting gone wrong opens with Brown Rabbit in self-pitying mode: ``I wish I could hop, skip, and jump, too, but I'm too old to play games,'' he moans. Gray Mouse counsels him to get a family, and off troops Brown Rabbit to find a mate. When he settles in for a nap on a pile of hay, he accidentally hatches three eggs sequestered there. ``Mama!'' the new ducklings quack. Brown Rabbit's efforts to find their mother fail; the ducks flew south the day before. To cheer up the sad ducklings, alone in the world, just as he is, Brown Rabbit teaches them to hop, skip, and jump--and his family is born. It is curious, and unexplored, why the other barnyard animals are so diffident, but the message of shared responsibility is sweetly understated, while the tender, benignly baffled characters of Kelly's watercolor illustrations are quite effective. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Puffin
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140568158
• ISBN 13: 9780140568158
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Kelly Jo
• Number of pages: 32