The Picnic

Narrates the events of a picnic from the point of view of the animals who live above and below the picnic grounds where the humans come to eat. By the author of Alphabet Times Four: An International ABC.

Elaborate pictures and a few unadorned sentences afford a rabbit's-eye view of ordinary picnickers who unknowingly disrupt field animals in their quiet subterranean domesticity. Rabbits, mice and moles crouch fearfully in their burrow as the visitors arrive; are plunged into darkness when a biscuit lodges in their entrance; are sent scurrying by the "scrabbling claws" of a digging dog; and rejoice when rain drives the intruders away. Brown's delicate, masterful watercolors, with the sweep and detail of 19th-century landscape paintings, painstakingly recreate the creatures' pastoral world. Her palette capably accommodates the light-filled, grassy fields, the dim, sepia-toned interior of the burrow, and--in an astonishing chromatic shift--the black-on-black view of the animals huddled in the pitch-dark warren. A treasure. Ages 3-7.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A gifted illustrator (Our Puppy's Vacation, 1987) who is especially adept at depicting the English countryside takes the point of view of the animals living just under some sudden human activity. Brown draws readers into this shadowy world with the rabbits scooting for their burrows and populates it with a crowd of other rabbits, mice, moles, and a lizard. Suddenly, light pouring in the entrance is blocked; a brave mole ascends to dislodge a biscuit, after which the huge eye of a toddler is seen peering in. More threatening is the dog's nose that follows; fortunately, his digging is interrupted by a downpour--the people's picnic is over, and the woodland creatures can come out at sundown for their own feast. Brown develops her simple story with unusual care and imagination; the variety she achieves in the underground scenes (one is virtually black-on-black) is fascinating, while the animals are rendered with delightful skill and a contagious affection for such small, wild creatures as these. A charming book. (Picture book. 3-7) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.