Picture Book-Review 3

1.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rohmann, Eric. 2002. My Friend Rabbit. Brookfield, Connecticut. Roaring Book Press. ISBN 0716315357

2.PLOT SUMMARY
In this story of animal characters, rabbit and mouse are good friends that look out for each other and help find solutions for arising troubles. The story plot originates one day when rabbit attempts to do something good for mouse by pushing his toy plane off into the air. Sadly, after mouse drops out of it the plane lands on top of a tree. With his repetitive phrase of “Not to worry, Mouse, I’ve got an idea”, rabbit conjures a plan to retrieve the plane that involves the use of other animals like a hippopotamus, an elephant, a crocodile, and a family of ducks among others. When the plan fails and leaves the animals quite upset at rabbit, mouse comes to his rescue. Fully grateful for his friend’s help, rabbit attempts to hug mouse causing him to lose control of the toy plane which again lands on top of a tree.

3.CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This is a story of true friendship and one that is bursting with qualities of an exceptional children’s book. Non-surprisingly a Caldecott Medal Award winner, this book requires only the most minimal of ordinary text to tell its tale. The use of a big, white rabbit as the character who means wells, but for who every idea results in more trouble is a great example of how a character is developed through illustrations as described in Children’s Literature, Briefly (Tunnel & Jacobs, 2004) His whiteness portrays the purity of a friend who means well while his big size can be attributed to his clumsiness. With a light blue background to establish setting, the illustrations serve to portray character and object movements as the plot develops. For example, at the beginning and end when the plane is flying through the air, readers can follow its path through 3 pages by following the illustrator provided lines that would come from a real plane’s exhaust. Also, through the sole use of illustrations readers learn about rabbit’s plan to retrieve mouse’s plane from the tree by making a high-reaching animal chain. The composition of two pages mid-book is suddenly vertical wherein the rest of the pages are horizontal. An indirect lesson for the reader comes at the end when the small mouse that had provided the voice for this story, displays his affection by helping rabbit who had just wanted to help mouse.

4.REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY starred review: "Rohmann tells most of the story through bold, expressive relief prints....This gentle lesson in patience and loyalty, balanced on the back of a hilarious set of illustrations, will leave young readers clamoring for repeat readings."
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL starred review: "The double-page, hand-colored relief prints with heavy black outlines are magnificent, and children will enjoy the comically expressive pictures of the animals before and after their attempt to extract the plane. The text is minimal; it's the illustrations that are the draw here."
Caldecott Medal Award-2003


5.CONNECTIONS
-Excellent title for a unit on communal friendship and the actions of friends.
-Shared writing experience by providing the text to the pages that are intentionally left without text.
-Reader’s response journal on the topic of friendship or personal acts of friendship displayed.
-Character analysis art/language arts activity.