Rabbits Good News

An introduction to spring follows the adventures of young Rabbit, who leaves her warm, dark burrow where she has been sleeping and delightedly realizes that the long winter has come to an end. BOMC Main. Junior Lib Guild.

PreSchool-Grade 1?A small brown rabbit is drawn from the snug hole where she's been curled up with her family by a mysterious "something" that is calling her. As she crosses the grassy fields, she greets a blooming flower, a zooming bee, a worm poking up its head from the ground, a baby bird breaking out of its shell, and a swishing butterfly. She sniffs and listens very hard, then hops home to report the news: "'Spring is here.'" The tried-and-true message is expressed with effective simplicity in well-phrased rhythmic language and soft, dreamy double-page spreads in lush pastels. Sweeps of warm, glowing color invoke the burgeoning beauty of the season, and the round-faced, wide-eyed Rabbit has an expression of wondering sweetness as she investigates its little miracles.?Patricia Pearl Dole, formerly at First Presbyterian School, Martinsville, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sweetness and simplicity mark Bornstein's (The Dancing Man; Little Gorilla) tale of an inquisitive bunny who rises from her "warm dark hole in the ground" to trace the origin of a mysterious "soft green sound." Gently scumbled pastels saturate each spread with a rainbow of colors, with the blue tones of predawn giving way to the pink of sunrise and the vibrant yellow and orange of midday. While limiting the images along Rabbit's quest (three mushrooms against a yellow-green meadow, a single bee half hidden in a vivid blossom), Bornstein deftly suggests sweeping vistas. She creates a kid-pleasing tone of suspense, too, as Rabbit gradually approaches her elusive goal ("She could almost hear the words now"). Particularly striking is the spread on which she is (literally) enlightened: her beaming countenance, filling the right-hand page, almost matches the radiance of a blazing sun, opposite. This good news embraces not only Rabbit, but readers too. Ages 3-6.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 3^-6. Peeking from her burrow at a break-of-dawn world, young Rabbit is impelled to track an undefinable sound. And searching for its source, Rabbit hops across ever-brightening pages worked in cottony pastels of blush pink or new grass green, passing en route blossoming flowers, wiggling worms, and a hatching chick. Finally she arrives at a sun-bright page and the realization that the sound she hears is that of spring. Smiling rabbits on uncluttered double-page spreads enhance the appeal of this natural for spring-themed story hours. Ellen Mandel