My Friend Rabbit

Rating:
Summary: Cute little book...
Review: This book got our attention for earning the Caldecott Award. Overall, it is a fun and enjoyable book. The illustrations are bold, simple, and eye catching all at once. It is a very short read, which is sometimes a good thing with little children's attention span!
It is a tad sad, and funny all at the same time. It made both my son and myself say.."Awww...." for the poor rabbit. A very cute book on friendship and unconditional love though.

Rating:
Summary: My Friend Rabbit-A Must for all ages
Review: Eric Rohmann has not only captured one's attention with the story line but with the illustrations as well. The story works as a total response to freindship for children. Adults that I have watched read the book have a very positive response as well. Children cannot put the book down. One reading the book gets very involved and before you realize what has happened the book is over but the message lingers. I have found all of Rohmann's books extremly interesting and worth reading. The illustrations are beyond the everyday children's book. I only hope to visit with him sometime soon and have the books signed.

Thanks Eric for a great contribution to Children's Literature.

Betty Kinser
Illinois State University

Rating:
Summary: Caldecott-worthy
Review: Eric Rohmann's book, "My Friend Rabbit," is about a mouse and a rabbit that are very good friends. Rabbit is the friend that is always getting into trouble, and mouse is the friend that always stands by Rabbit's side. In this story, Mouse lets Rabbit play with his new airplane, to which Rabbit gets the airplane stuck in a tree. Rabbit thinks he has the solution as he drags all the animals over to the tree and has them stand head to toe to reach the airplane. However, when the animals plunge to the ground, they are very unhappy with Rabbit. But, Mouse still loves Rabbit, and lets him fly away with him on his airplane.

In the book, "My Friend Rabbit," Eric Rohmann uses hand colored relief prints for the illustrations. I love the bold colors Rohamann uses in the illustrations to portray a joyful and energetic plot. Beyond coloring, I love Eric Rohmann's use of line in this story. He uses dotted and loopy lines to let the reader follow the airplanes path. I think children will love following the lines of the airplane's path.
I really enjoyed the use of line on the page with all the animals stacked up to reach the airplane. I think kids will enjoy turning the book to see how high the animals stretched up towards the tree.

Rating:
Summary: Creative Page Layouts
Review: Eric Rohmann's book, "My Friend Rabbit," is about a mouse and a rabbit that are very good friends. Rabbit is the friend that is always getting into trouble, and mouse is the friend that always stands by Rabbit's side. In this story, Mouse lets Rabbit play with his new airplane, to which Rabbit gets the airplane stuck in a tree. Rabbit thinks he has the solution as he drags all the animals over to the tree and has them stand head to toe to reach the airplane. However, when the animals plunge to the ground, they are very unhappy with Rabbit. But, Mouse still loves Rabbit, and lets him fly away with him on his airplane.

In the book, "My Friend Rabbit," Eric Rohmann uses hand colored relief prints for the illustrations. I love the bold colors Rohamann uses in the illustrations to portray a joyful and energetic plot. Beyond coloring, I love Eric Rohmann's use of line in this story. He uses dotted and loopy lines to let the reader follow the airplanes path. I think children will love following the lines of the airplane's path.
I really enjoyed the use of line on the page with all the animals stacked up to reach the airplane. I think kids will enjoy turning the book to see how high the animals stretched up towards the tree.

Rating:
Summary: A great picture book!
Review: I had to read this story for my Children's Literature class at West Virginia State College. I thought this book is a great book. I can see why it was chosen as the 2003 Caldecott Winner. Along with the pictures, the story is great. Although the words are minimal, they are to the point and an easy read. I would recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: My Friend Rabbit
Review: I loved this book!!!! It is a wonderful book about true friendship. About the love that true friends have no matter what happens between them..... there is always love....and My Friend Rabbit shows that to all of us.

Rating:
Summary: Well done but flawed
Review: The illustrations in this 2003 Caldecott Medal winner are for the most part, an excellent example of picture book illustration. The eye-catching artwork builds suspense, provides humor and expression, and is instrumental in telling this simple, well constructed story. However, I think that two of the full page spreads create confusion. A single rabbit appears to be four different rabbits in a full page spread attempting to show the rabbit carrying a succession of animals to help retrieve a toy plane. In the same manner, the second to last spread attempts to illustrate the rabbit and mouse flying in the plane. Four planes are shown connected by a dotted line. As a professional librarian and children's book reviewer, I found this layout confusing, as did my colleague and our story hour children. Despite these flaws, this is a good picture book, but not a medal winner in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Rabbit has a cunning plan
Review: There are some books in the world that you can flip through in the bookstore and get a pretty good idea of the plot and characters. Then there are books like "My Friend Rabbit". Roughly a year ago I wanted to know what all the "My Friend Rabbit" fuss was about. I mean, this book was a 2003 Caldecott Award winner after all. I wanted to see why. So I went to my local independent bookstore and flipped through it. I flipped and flipped and was baffled by the heaping helpfuls of praise it had received. My haphazard flipping didn't reveal anything particularly interesting or original in the story. Fast forward a year and I've finally taken the time to sit down and read, "My Friend Rabbit" in its entirety (a process which took me all of 93 seconds). Suddenly I understood why it was so beloved. Though an incredibly simple plot, story, and set of characters, "My Friend Rabbit" is a remarkably beautiful tale of two woodland creatures and their plane related misadventures. It's simple in words and complex in visuals.

As Mouse points out from the beginning, "My friend Rabbit means well. But whatever he does, wherever he goes, trouble follows". That's Mouse's nice way of saying that Rabbit is an all-time screw-up. In this particular outing, Rabbit has managed to get Mouse's brand new airplane (in which Mouse fits like a furry little Lindbergh) stuck in a tree sans Mouse. Quick as a wink Rabbit's off with a, "Not to worry, Mouse. I've got an idea!" thrown over his shoulder. Before you know it he's tugged, dragged, carried, and cajoled a wide variety of animals to stand on one another under the offending tree. Mouse is just able to reach the wing of his plane when the entire group comes crashing to the ground. Rabbit is in big big trouble. Fortunately the plane is now free and two go happily off into the sky. That is, until Rabbit steers them a tad off course. The last words in the book are a too familiar, "Not to worry, Mouse. I've got an idea". Readers can guess what'll happen next.

Ho hum, you say. I've seen stories of this ilk before. I won't contest that. Maybe you've seen a dozen similarly ilked picture books in your day. Maybe you're an old hat in the clumsy-rabbit-gets-in-and-out-of-scrapes genre of storytelling. This might all be the case. But you have never, I say I say, NEVER seen anything like this colorful concoction of animalistic cajolery. First of all, the book in and of itself is beautiful to look at. Filled with hand-colored relief prints spanning a rainbow of different colors, the story looks like a series of cheery rounded woodblock images more than anything else. Rohmann's characters are beautifully expressive and original. Each animal has its own personality and individual traits. From the somewhat perturbed goose to the blissfully unaware hippo, they all act, look, and react in different ways. Rohmann isn't afraid to make use of every inch of page space either. Sometimes an image on one page will be of just rabbit pulling on a trunk. The next two page spread is then completely filled with the elephant as Rabbit hops away for more animalia. Pictures will suddenly becomes vertical as suits the story (as when they're standing on one another to reach the tree). There are even pictures that display nothing more than impending doom. When the animals fall from their tower you get a brief image of the baby geese that didn't participate in the Babel-like construction running for cover, just before the creatures hit. And visual humor has never been so beautifully realized as in this tale. There is a shot of every single animal (save mouse and the still smiling hippo) glaring at Rabbit with undisguised malice after their unintentional plummet. Rabbit, who up until this time has had eyes that were simple black dots, looks straight at the viewer with the whites of his eyes very very visible. It's one of those pictures that says a million different things and could only have been drawn in the last ten years. After all, how many picture books can you name off the top of your head where the hero stares at the viewer in fear?

Not that it really matters, but I fully support the fact that "My Friend Rabbit" won all the awards that it did. Books of its nature are rarities. This tale is funny, touching, beautiful, and engagingly constructed. It is colorful. It is well-thought out. It is a classic in the purest sense of the word. It is a wonderful adventure, a touching tale, and a great great book. I praise it with all the praising strength with which I am endowed. Buy it immediately.


Rating:
Summary: Grabs my toddlers imagination
Review: This book has very few words and relies on the excellent artwork to tell its story. And that is not a bad thing. My 18 month old adores this book and now he tries to tell the story by looking at the pictures. He weaves his hands about like an out of control plane and rests his palm somewhere up in the air. He pulls his shirt to show how the elephant was pulled and pushes his chest to show how the Rhino was pushed by the rabbit and he has suddenly fallen in love with crocodiles!
Why only four stars? My son looks at me quizzically when we look at the final stack up - the order in which the animals were carried to the tree is different. I cannot come up with a good reason why it is so. Also, the story conclusion is somewhat hard for a child to follow. They dont have the concept of reaching up for something just beyond your grasp, flailing and falling.

Rating:
Summary: Not to Worry Mouse I Have a Review
Review: This was in the nightly reading stack for weeks and returns frequently. The book is short on words and requires you to look at the details before the whole story unfolds. We have had fun as we notice different details the more we read this book. My little one is about to turn 3 and may be on the verge of outgrowing this book. I'll be a little sad when she does.