Brother Rabbit: A Cambodian Tale

Brother Rabbit, the clever trickster, survives by his wits as he plays dead in a basket of bananas in order to eat them, convinces an elephant to unglue him from a tree stump, and talks his way out of a crocodile's belly.

Kindergarten-Grade 3. Trickery reigns supreme as clever Brother Rabbit gets the best of everyone. His main opponent is a crocodile, whom he convinces to ferry him across the river in exchange for a cure for his scaly skin. From that point on, the two constantly spar for the upper hand. In the end, Rabbit extricates himself from the crocodile's belly by pretending to be thrilled at the prospect of eating crocodile guts. The story is well told, with just enough detail to capture all the outrageous activity in Rabbit's day, and children will take delight in his exuberant mischief. A lengthy note places Brother Rabbit in a cultural context but the book includes no source note. Hewitson uses watercolor and paint in a highly accomplished manner that mimics complex, heavily patterned scratchboard illustrations. Each single- or double-page spread features a different border that barely contains the rabbit's foolish actions. Even though the pictures include a host of details depicting Cambodian village life, the illustrations look great at a distance, making this eminently suitable for group sharing.?Ellen Fader, Multnomah County Library, Portland,
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.